Years ago, I stumbled on a website where a music lover had made a list of his or her favorite pieces for a variety of moods. That list encompassed all classical genres, and it was pretty comprehensive. Some of the associations led me to discover music that soon became some of my favorite. To show... Continue Reading →
Every once in a while I wake up in the middle of the night with a horrible realization: I haven’t been talking about Brahms enough. So here I am to keep making the case for Brahms’s piano music. I first heard this piece when I was about ten years old and just starting to really... Continue Reading →
In the year 1828, Franz Schubert stared down his impending death from syphilis and produced an astonishing amount of music. In his desperation, with the clock running out, he achieved some of his greatest art (see my post about his B-flat sonata). Thankfully, he also left most of it in a finished state, but the... Continue Reading →
Johannes Brahms loved variation form. This is clear from the number of standalone variation sets he composed, as well as the numerous times he turned to variation form for a movement of a sonata or other work. All of these pieces are quite fine, but there’s something about Op. 21, No. 1 that I keep... Continue Reading →
#3: Brahms - Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 (1853) Even though Brahms’s Second Symphony still gets overplayed, and chamber musicians get excited about pieces like the Horn Trio Op. 40 or the Piano Quartet Op. 60, lately I’ve perceived that Brahms is losing popularity in the solo piano world. Maybe his high-minded,... Continue Reading →
