'This is music that makes you happy to be alive'

September 14, 2007 at 8:43 PM

Well, life is as busy as ever, but at least one thing I'm working on now is an extremely desirable thing to be busy with. I've just started to learn one of my very favorite pieces of music: the Brahms G Major Violin Sonata. Not only is this piece my favorite violin sonata, it is one of my favorite pieces of music of any instrument and genre period. I feel both daunted and exhilerated by it. It reminds me of when I played the Mendelssohn concerto last year. Part of me was intimidated — I was afraid that I could never come close to doing justice to the piece. But then another part of me was so in love with the music that it didn't matter. This sonata really is exquisite. Brahms doesn't waste a single note — all the technical challenges in the piece are the means to a musical end, not vice versa. To be honest, it will be a treat after working on the Lalo for so long. Don't get me wrong, Lalo is a great piece, well-written, colorful, and lots of fun . . . but frankly, I've always struggled a bit with it musically. I feel like I have to put on an act when I play it. Whereas the Brahms . . . well, what can I say? Anyone who knows and loves this piece will understand when I say it expresses some of the deepest, most universal longings of the human soul.

The funny thing about the Brahms is that there was a time in the not so distant past when I didn't care for it terribly much. I didn't dislike it by any means, but for me it was just kind of "eh". I think it's because when I was younger I heard the Brahms sonatas overplayed — on the radio, on my older sister's CD's . . . by my sister herself, in fact. Somehow they lost their charm before I even got to know them, if that makes sense. (It could also be the Brahms is an acquired taste not really appreciated by a 13 year old). :-) I rediscovered these sonatas, so to speak, through concerts at my favorite place in the world (which you're all probably tired of hearing about): Sound Encounters (What can I say? there's a reason I keep talking about it). Back in 2004 I heard Brian Lewis and Laura Kennedy perform the A Major sonata. My memory of it is a bit vague, but I do recall feeling every note, every phrase, had thought and care and love behind it.

Fast forward two years: same summer camp, same composer, same performers, but this time it was the G Major Sonata. I can honestly say that that was one of the most personally moving recitals I've ever seen, if not THE most. You could just tell how much Brian loved this piece — it came through so clearly in his playing. It was very exposed and personal — nothing was held back. Have you ever been to a concert and felt as if the musician is sharing with you a piece of his soul? That's the impression I got. And there's something else. At that time, Brian was just recovering from a very painful leg operation and was going through various medical complications. From what I'd heard, he wasn't even supposed to be up and walking at all. And yet, all week, he had been teaching and performing with an incredible amount of energy and enthusiasm and selflessness. When he walked out to perform the Brahms that night, you could tell that every step required extra effort. I'm sure he was in pain for the entire concert. And yet, here he was, and as cliched as it sounds, he really was putting his heart and soul into Brahms. After the first movement, he made the mildly joking comment, "This is music that just makes you happy to be alive." Most of the audience murmured a little chuckle when he said this, but coming from Brian, at this particular time, and after what I had just heard him play, that little side comment held a lot more meaning than I think most people assumed. I'll probably remember that performance for the rest of my life. When I got back from camp that summer, I would listen to recordings of that sonata, and if anything, have come to love it even more since then. Like any masterpiece, it's one that you can go back to over and over, and discover a new layer of beauty.

I'll leave you with the words of Isaac Stern who, in remembering his friend Joseph Szigeti, sums up the heart of this piece better than I ever could:

"I remember a performance he gave at Carnegie Hall in the mid-forties. In the opening work, he was ill at ease and not quite with it. Then he played the Brahms G Major Sonata, one of the most seraphic, poignant, soul-searching works in all the violin literature — music you don't perform, you live through. You try to show to what degree it is the essence of living, an appreciation for the act of life. Szigeti hit his stride and took off. I believe the pianist was Nikita Magaloff; the pianist is always so vitally important to such music. It was one of the most ennobling performances I have ever heard. Nobody in the hall breathed. You were not listening to a performance of someone standing on the stage at Carnegie Hall; you were surrounded by a golden aura of music."

I'm sure you can see now why I'm both intimidated and inspired.

From jennifer steinfeldt warren
Posted on September 15, 2007 at 12:46 AM

I just read that book, and you picked a great quote.

Good luck.

Sometimes I read blogs like this and realize I don't respect the music I'm playing enough. Or rever it. I guess I haven't found "that piece" on the viola yet, and I'm trying to work almost exclusively on technique on violin right now, so...

Sals,
JEnnifer

From Bernardo B
Posted on September 15, 2007 at 1:45 PM

Please post a recording when you're finished learning the piece!

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted on September 15, 2007 at 6:44 PM

I also had the experience with that sonata of not liking it that much when I first heard it, but then having it grow on me. I learned to play it while I was living in Berlin, when I was 17. This was when Berlin was still divided into East and West, and my violin teacher there used to make trips into East Berlin to buy music less expensively. For the Brahms sonata, she brought me back an Edition Peters, used, that had an unusual cover on it. My teacher in the US had always insisted that I buy the Schirmer edition of everything, so I had all these pieces with yellow covers, and then this Brahms G major sonata that was old and green and a little musty-smelling, brought across Checkpoint Charlie. I think that sensory impression colored my view of the piece when I first heard it: the music too seemed a little old, musty, and clandestine.

But really, it's not that way at all. When I hear it now, I'm most reminded of how happy I was studying violin in Berlin. I was taking a year off between high school and college, and I had a lot of time to practice and play. I rode the subway or my bike all around the city. It was a very different lifestyle than I had been used to up to that point--very free and artistic. Like you said, happy to be alive.

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'This is music that makes you happy to be alive'

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