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V.com weekend vote: Which is your favorite Brahms Symphony?
Here is a potentially difficult question: What is your favorite Brahms symphony?
This vote was inspired by my friend Colleen Coomber, who posted this question along with a picture from her hotel practice room of her violin music for Brahms 1, in front of a window overlooking a gorgeous Alaskan backdrop, where she is playing in the Juneau Symphony.
Personally I love them all, and this question seems a little like asking "Which is your favorite child?" I love them all! But in this case, I will decide, at least based on my mood, today. Here is the vote, and below I've provided some listening and some thoughts, in case you need to think about it! And please add your own thoughts about these symphonies - what you like about them, your favorite performances, etc. in the comments!
Scroll to the bottom for listening....And here are my random thoughts on these symphonies. Over the decades I have had the great privilege of playing them all, starting (surprisingly!) with the first symphony, in youth orchestra. We had no business playing in youth orchestra - it's really one of the "harder" ones! But here goes, random thoughts!
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was (the ripe old age of) 43 when his first symphony was premiered. His Symphony No. 1 is a monster, in such a delicious way, with its relentless drive, its intensity. It is long and oftentimes morose; it twists all over the place, changes moods on a dime. It's awesome, in the dictionary meaning of "awesome": "extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear."
No. 2, by contrast, is full of love, nobility, warmth, excitement. It still has some of that Brahmsian angst, but but certainly it feels less conflicted. It's wonderful to listen to - I had a CD of von Karajan conducting this with Berlin and played it over and over - more times than I can count.
Symphony No. 3 is perhaps the moodiest. Personally this was the last one that I learned to love, but just maybe I love it the most. Its third movement is especially well-crafted, with the cellos singing out the theme from the beginning. But I especially love the end of this symphony, which at first puzzled me. Everyone knows that if you want the audience to go crazy with applause, you end your piece "loud and fast." But this symphony just peters out. What? I've thought about it a lot. It ends with slow-burning nostalgia - as so many things in life end. It makes my heart full, my mind reflective. It's not a show-stopper, but a beautiful ending that says something very profound about the human condition.
To me, Brahms 4 wins the prize for "best edited." By this time Brahms had streamlined his symphonic ideas, and this work has a certain tidiness to it. (Plus, there's that fun part for triangle in the third movement!). I've certainly played it the most of all the symphonies, and I suspect that it is programmed most often, though I don't know this for a fact! (Feel free to cite statistics, if you have any!)
Here are some performances for your listening pleasure:
Brahms Symphony No. 1, 1987 performance with Herbert von Karajan and the Berliner Philharmoniker:
Brahms Symphony No. 2, 2015 performance with Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra:
Brahms Symphony No. 3, 2014 performance with Herbert Blomstedt and the Concertgebouworkest.
Brahms Symphony No. 4 2014 performance with Jukka-Pekka Saraste and the WDR Symphony Orchestra.
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