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Hello and welcome back everyone to Where is the music podcast. Today I am going to introduce you to a little short masterpiece of the late romantic piano repertoire. We are talking about an intermezzo for piano solo by Johan.

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By by Johann Brahm.

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Johann Sebastian Brahms. That's funny by Johannes Brahms. This is the OPUS 118. And this is the second intermezzo of this collection. It's in a major and.

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And.

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It is possible that if you haven't identified it, or if you don't recall this, if this name doesn't ring a bell, it is possible that you have heard it before. It's quite well known.

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Although the late music by Johannes Brahms, it's it might not be the most, let's say performed. It's not that it's not the common to find it, particularly because of its expressive and artistic.

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I would say aesthetic profundity. Certainly this particular one among the many collections.

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He, he wrote. I think 5 collections of piano pieces as late works of his life, Opus 116, one hundred 17118 and 119 and so.

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Alright.

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These are particularly profound because, first of all the composer go back, goes back to piano solo repertoire after having master fundamentally every possible classical form from the.

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Orchestra to the Chamber, ensemble to the string quartet and the piano. Solo is, of course, a more intimate dimension, but he has developed his craft to such a degree on all the dimension.

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Of musical composition I would like today though, to maybe not go through a typical linear manner if you have been following the various music podcast you know the.

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They tend to generally go on on many tangents, perhaps, but also I tend to not follow. Let's say they need their biographical or the historical or the analytical trajectory I, and this is also.

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Or probably probably a good opportunity to refresh.

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My listeners to what is the overall purpose of this podcast, which is to talk about music? What may be distinguished distinguishes this podcast from other similar ones is that.

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I don't intend to.

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Talk about anything else other than what music really means. Having said that, the acknowledgement of the impossibility of the task is there. I am perfectly aware that we cannot talk about music after all.

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What is there to say? You wherever it is that music is meant to convey to us, we are going to appreciate and understand it and enjoy by listening, not by explanation of what or descriptions of what we're listening to.

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But having said that, there are plenty of things that perhaps we can say about it. Maybe there are words or poetic terms, or maybe even aesthetic approaches or perspectives and angles that might.

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Enlighten us or might just help us getting closer to the musical experience and last note on this. This fundamentally comes from my personal experience as a student and an artist and a teacher.

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And my experience is the one who of someone who has been around music and words and have greatly benefited from the words of experts. Maybe the words of artists, the words of people who sometimes.

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Are able to catch in a phrase in a way of saying in an image. Perhaps something that is.

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Inextricably linked to to a piece of music, or maybe even just a passage. So having said that, having a knowledge that we cannot really talk about music, let's talk a little bit about this. So as usual, I will try to play through the piece.

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Or at least the play passages.

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But in this case I would like to perhaps introduce you to a variety of layers of which this piece is composed, and if the experiment goes well when in the end I will play the whole thing together, you might appreciate it as what it is.

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Which is.

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Very fluent, very delicate, elegant. Somehow even light while profound, but nevertheless it is truly remarkable and dense piece of musical architecture and I.

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I will. I mean, I I would think that the mission is accomplished if I was able to, if I were able to.

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Communicate and convey to you a little bit of this architecture. So the first layer is certainly harmony and this is not a class. I'm not going.

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To teach you.

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About chords, but what I'm going to do is we're going to hear harmony particularly.

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We're going to hear the choice of harmonies that prams has organised together with a second dimension, the the metre or rhythm so.

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This is the first phase.

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OK, there's nothing special, but this is not Brahms. This is my version of the harmony that Brahms rights I took off the melody. So if you know this piece, you perhaps haven't recognised it yet.

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Going to play it again and say a couple of things about it.

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It's a. It's a ternary metre, what we call it's in 34, meaning there are three bits per bar.

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We feel the the wealthy type of movement and 1/2 and 1231.

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123 etcetera.

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But.

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The interesting aspect of it is not the code per say or or the the, the, the order or the musical phrase per se. The the harmony, the beauty that I personally find in this harmony is that it kind of defies.

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A bit, especially in the beginning the the.

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Let's say the gravities or the poles of tensions that we expect. First of all, it starts off it doesn't. It doesn't start really on. It should start.

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Right. That sounds OK, but without the opposite.

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What's the difference? Why? Why? Why am I saying this? Because in general, in music, every time we feel the landing somewhere in. In this case, we're talking about the landing on the first bit of a bar. We talk about a cadence.

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What?

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Which, by the way, if you know if you don't know the term cadence comes from the Italian cadenza kaderi, which means to fall. And so the idea of gravity landing falling on a particular movement of the bar is.

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Either enhanced or deceived from by harmony. In this case in this.

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It is not perfectly linear, while in this one.

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You can hear it is. I've played a game.

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Right. This leaves things open is not completely fell. It hasn't completely fallen while here.

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It has to the choice of a composer to do the other way rather than the intuitive one. It's pretty interesting. He does it twice.

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Why?

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As you can see, the response the concludes the phrase gives it's more regular, gives more of a classical closure as we call it. OK, let's look at the second phrase and see if we find something similar.

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Yes, something similar I would I would point out that there is more tension coming through. The 1st Cadence is certainly clearer and more solid.

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This one again.

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I'm going to play the harmony of the first two phrases altogether and you already start. Probably. I would hope having a, let's say, a polyphonic introduction and harmonic introduction. In this piece there is more to it and I hope I'm going to.

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Get to go through it all. But what I really would like you to is forget about the notes and start hearing the harmony, the inner the developing, transforming tension.

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It tells a story within these changes, of course.

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It sounds like we have arrived.

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Home, doesn't it?

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By home, if you are a musician, you probably know already what I mean. What I intend the technical term for the harmonic chord that tells we are home is tonic. It sounds like we have arrived at a tonic, doesn't it?

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But that's not where we started. We started here.

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Remember.

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And we arrived here.

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It is quite tricky if you if you have never, let's say, played an instrument, play the piano, it's quite tricky to label this sound. They are so similar, but at the same time the music is telling us whether whether we are.

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At at the home sound or not, and we feel it.

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In both cases, we feel it's here in the very beginning and we feel it here.

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At the very.

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End.

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So which one is it? Well, this is a trick pretty common in music.

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We start in in a home that we call tonic and we land in another home that we call dominant and the relationship between the two, especially if if you if you are able to distinguish them.

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And.

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The relationship between the two is of course they are a fifth apart. If you if you're curious about what does what this means, perhaps you could go back to one of my previous episodes where I.

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Let's say where I discuss the magic of fifths in music and what is 1/5 and why is it so important. So we are back, we are back to home. As I was saying.

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What does the braums do? Continues starts again.

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There are little variations here.

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You can tell it's a very similar kind of phrase, as we heard before, these little variations don't change much of the general trajectory. Let's continue.

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Overall it's the same now that you have a general impression, a general sense of what this music is about. What would you say? Would you say it's it is a dance, or perhaps it is a?

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It is a song with a maybe very lyrical singable melody.

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There is probably a bit of both.

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There are no words, but still, perhaps we can sing something on top. Brahms writes very lyrical melody, and I'm going to play it for you, and then we're going to put it all together.

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Nice, isn't it?

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And let's put it all together and say a couple of things.

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It's gorgeous, isn't it? Notice how, even though it's very lyrical, there are jumps like this.

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This is quite difficult to sync, but at the same time it's extremely expressive. It's very pathetic it it is probably a a development of this.

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That becomes.

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Alright.

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Now this melody here has a peculiarity. I'd say it is based on free nodes motive. This is the motive.

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That repeats in three notes.

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I mean the nodes are different, but the fact that they are free.

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Stays. It stays the same now continues.

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There is a nice circular trajectory going up and down. Very, very lyrical. There is nothing particularly original, no, no unique. But notice how this response.

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Can't still relate to the number three. We have 3 nodes going up.

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Three notes going down.

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So it doesn't seem to me that Brahms is treating this melodic motive for its trajectory is if it's going down or up, but it seems to be that it's treating one other aspect of it it's brevity. The fact is, just the three notes and.

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3 nodes becomes material to be played to be stretched. So in this case there are two quick and one long.

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And and now all even.

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OK, he does it again.

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3123 and again.

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123123.

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OK.

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We'll we'll come back a little bit later on this three notes theory. Obviously this is just at this stage, it's probably just an idea, it might be that it has some relevance later and certainly we will maintain open the question.

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Now Y-3 nodes and why would the three nodes matter?

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Now we continue a little bit talking about harmony in relationship with with rhythm because at this stage after the whole section, the first section has been exposed. We have an interesting, very mysterious.

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Phrase music I played to you.

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Going to stop there.

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So what's mysterious about it? Well, you might have heard. You might have heard a certain pace to it. There is the pace somehow increases while the harmony slows down. As a matter of fact, this.

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This is just one chord.

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This is another.

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And another.

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And finally.

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Somehow there is a interesting strategy here. The pace of the music increases, but the the number of actual harmonies decreases. It's probably a good way to keep things in balance.

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But let's notice that we were we finished the first section here.

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And we start this new one here.

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How?

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A little change.

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Dramatically expands, probably in a darker tone, expands towards toward the low range. The

Yeah, the dramatic impact there is there is something that becomes a bit dark.

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They're very dense harmonies here, but you can tell there is the setting for a crescendo for a we are start building up energy intension for something that is about to come, let's hit it again.

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OK, that's the first arrival point. But you notice that.

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All the tension that we have created, particularly through quite this and and course the the sense of dissonance here. What I mean by dissonance exactly, I mean the ear can perceive when certain sounds do not belong and the.

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A bit by intuition a bit bit by experience we tend to categorise the sounds according to how close or how far away they are to.

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An actual idea of of balance and harmony. Look at listen to this sound.

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This sound is would say reasonably consonant, but there is something odd and odd about it. This is very low note.

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This is a very.

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Sound so nice to see major chord but with this.

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It's very, very dark. And what about this?

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Very similar, yet the tension is dramatically increased.

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And.

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Even more right here, so we have.

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Brahms is the master of this dance orchestration, where little changes can can, can do a lot for what we call the musical tension. And then we have the melodic note.

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Right. It's a it just moves up and down. It's very close. It's called stepwise motion.

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Hey.

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It's not. It's not great tension, but that note.

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This one.

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It creates a lot of dissonance.

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All right.

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Fundamentally wrong.

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But in the context it it just, it just makes us feel that we are adding attention and taking it back, adding attention and.

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Looking back, it's a pole. In a sense. It's a little step that.

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The composer here adds to a larger trajectory of tension. This larger trajectory, of course, is a musical phrase musical phrase that lasts, I'd say, from here, lasts for a good 12 bars notice before I play it.

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The three notes, 123-123-1231 to three right again.

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This final chord I think is.

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I think it's it's perfect. There is an explosion of this, you know, here.

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Wow.

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This this is very hard to sing and it's not lyrical at all, but that's it's it's just another step for drama and tension.

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And slowly returns to a sense equilibrium.

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But only to leave it.

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And we are building up again.

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And again and maybe we arrived.

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umm

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Are we?

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The sense of opening and climaxes seems to be.

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Seems to be here but.

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We are yet to finish.

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What a beautiful a beautiful parenthesis.

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We have once again our free notes.

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Now elaborated a bit, but still.

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How dark, and let's say.

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It seems it seems like if there was a a positive energy moving upwards and building towards a particular, let's say expressive goal. Now it's saying that this this energy has given up.

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Is.

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If there is.

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If there is such a thing as decadent music, I would say this is this phrase is a decadent thing, seems to be tragically falling into despair, by the way, if if you think that the the distinction between a major chord.

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And its minor version.

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Is not something too serious. It's too simple to to use nowadays. Notice how he how Brahms does it now.

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Right. Simple but extremely expressive. And finally the last thing I want you to notice about this phrase is the three notes that started the piece you remember.

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This one.

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Remember, now we find them here.

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That's I think that's just pure magic. So.

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Here we are at the bottom and perhaps we are about to transcend it.

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OK.

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It seems like we are transcending it and.

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Now we are. We are going to the close of this initial, let's say first of three section the closing the the final phrase has something that we have encountered we have.

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This note actually this melody.

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Remember we encountered it earlier.

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We encountered it. It was this passage here.

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So there is a a game of a a game of references here that keeps.

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The music together and coherent it. I like this quote. They keep the music keeps changing while being always itself. I don't know where I where I heard it, but I like it and this code starts.

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On these three nodes again, so we have the ending.

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A any of the phrase and then coders.

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OK.

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The the feel obviously is entirely different from what we heard earlier. Should we refresh it? And so you can compare clearly this happened earlier.

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How much tension and the and the expectation and desire to to, to, to, to, to go through certain, you know, worldly sorrows, to send them to go, to achieve a perhaps a, you know, a lighter and more.

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You know, pleasant dimension and here it is.

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And it ends with the initial motive.

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You hear?

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It.

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Right. Did you hit it?

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That's the way we started.

00:35:03

OK.

00:35:06

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00:35:20

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00:35:42

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00:36:01

And, but usually the repertoire is quite advanced and in many years of teaching I I realise I noticed that there are so many people passionate about the music of Chopin but are at the same time perhaps.

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00:37:01

That's it. End of the end of of the advertisement. Let's go on with the central section of this beautiful intermezzo. It is quite a change of pace. Complete change of texture. But you will see how.

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Somehow it relates perfectly. The is one of the situations where the contrast between two sections is exactly what keeps things coherent in and imbalance. Let's hear it a little bit.

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It continues, but I'm going to want to say a couple of things here before and before we go on the texture. As I was saying has has changed, it floats a little bit more. This is because now we are not on normal quivers.

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We are on triplets.

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You can hear.

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The the pace has has changed, but also this vibration, this, this, this, this tension throughout this phase is given by the POLYRHYTHM creates created by the right.

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End part and the left hand part particularly. You can hear it here.

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Here.

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You see.

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Things, let's say things are floating together. They're not exactly regular matching.

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So.

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This this texture is quite quite remarkably different from where we come from. We come from a lyrical soft song, fundamentally something that can be sung and does go quite regularly in a consistent metre and consistent tempo.

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Everything in this section though starts, seems to fall apart. Seems to enter a dimension of a similarity of of pure vibration. Nevertheless there is.

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And there is Melody.

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Beautiful melt.

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Notice that there is a counter melody.

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So how does this work?

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There couldn't be a finer composer than Brahms putting together this. This melody sounds like a little bit of an imitation in the beginning.

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Right.

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Right.

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So together goes.

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OK.

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After that we have another level up towards our, say, pure transcendence.

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And comes back.

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How beautiful is this moment? I I wanted to continue, but there is. There is so much to say.

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Notice after this moment of pure Ascension.

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Pardon me.

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Although the melody is going down, it is a moment of pure lightness and contemplation.

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It is quite difficult to play this chord in a manner that you hear the melody.

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And the counter point.

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Clearly, along with all these other notes, very dense chords, it is possible that in the mind of brands, this is all orchestra clarinets, flutes, strings, bassoon, and at the piano we just have to use a lot of imagination and a bit of creativity.

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Make it work.

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But when this part ends, we are coming back to this very flowing free flowing. And I would say dramatic.

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River type of texture.

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Now you probably have recognised it that the melody, the earlier plate.

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Now it's in the tenure.

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Right. And the metal did it earlier was in the tenor.

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Now is in the soprano.

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This is a bit of a mind twist and hands twist because there seem to be 3 clear parts clearly divided. And guess what? Pianists only have two hands. Good luck with that.

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After this brief but short explosion, brief but intense explosion of of harmony, of patriotism, here we have a few coders that might hint that we are going. We are going back to.

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Somewhere more stable.

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Tension, tension and now.

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I know this.

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But wait a minute. Something has changed. Changed a little switch of notes.

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Like this?

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Well, that's that's the first. The first time that we hit it. But as I was saying, a little switch of notes adds so much more pathos.

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And we are back to our dark.

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Now we know where he's going.

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Is going to a nice place we heard.

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Which makes the.

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Weight.

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Sweeter.

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Sweet pain.

00:49:44

Oh.

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Isn't that gorgeous?

00:50:15

So.

00:50:17

It doesn't seem it doesn't seem to me that this requires much to say to be perfectly.

00:50:25

Honest with you, I just want to point out that after the central central section where things become more unstable and vibrating.

00:50:37

Reprise this recapitulation, it's fundamentally almost exactly copying and paste the opening page, but notice how we didn't feel at all the repetition, the weight of the repetition.

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Why? Because the choice of material, the elaboration, the delicate balance between.

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Between the phrases and the contrast between the sections is so well calculated that even a page, almost a page and a half exactly repeated. Note by note, doesn't feel at all repeated feels like new the.

00:51:26

Precision the accuracy, the sensitivity to get the things. So just exactly right. So that even if you even if you repeat them, it doesn't feel like a repetition at all. That's that's the stuff of genius.

00:51:44

Yes.

00:51:45

Some students, when they first encountered this, these examples tend to dismiss.

00:51:53

These qualities as a property of maybe the style, an aspect of the style of a particular period of music. So if the form is a BA, every composer will write using that form. And of course every piece will have.

00:52:12

The final section fundamentally repeated from the first, but that is quite a superficial way to approach the the structure of a piece, because if I think about the way interesting story works, you cannot take the 1st chapter.

00:52:32

You put it in the end, right?

00:52:35

It won't work, but there is something about starting from home and reaching home that nevertheless has very profound meaning, and music tends to.

00:52:49

Take advantage of this journey and certainly the form ABA does that. Nevertheless, the ability to play such a journey with this sort of millimetric and.

00:53:09

Let's say surgical precision as a composer like Brahms does, it's quite remarkable and and unique. So if you play the piano and you didn't know this piece, I encourage you to to get your hands on it to.

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Read it and to learn it. It's just beautiful, beautiful harmony.

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And well, if you if you don't play the piano, I encourage you to listen to some nice versions. And actually, I encourage you to listen to the whole OPUS 118, which is where this Internet is taken from. I will put a link on.

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On the podcast episode I'm going to.

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To hopefully add some more to the list of Brahm's piano piece pieces later on in the future, so stay tuned and thank you very much for listening. Today I will see you the next time. Bye bye.