brahms sweet brahms

Johannes Brahms

Ever fallen in love with a familiar piece all over again?  That’s what happened to me this week with the Brahms 3rd Symphony.  It was the first Brahms symphony that I played, back in the Tacoma Youth Symphony under our wonderful conductor Harry Davidson (now at Duke University).  I was playing 2nd violin then (only one step away from viola), and it was a tough go for a bunch of kids.  But I so fell in love with the whole idea of Brahms during that time.

Fast forward to this week.  I wasn’t so thrilled about doing the Brahms.  I don’t know why.  I love the 2nd and 4th, and grudgingly admire the 1st (it’s just so in-your-face), and the 3rd just seemed to be the unfortunate step-sibling in my mind.  That lasted until we got to the glorious, golden, burnished coda of the final movement.

What a tremendous chorale!  And it’s not show-offy like in the 4th.  It just emerges, glistening and full of immense, controlled power, and then slips beneath the surface with nary a ripple to show that it ever existed, like a giant sea creature – benevolent but capable of unfathomable feats of strength.

Then there’s the 3rd movement, with that most glorious of Brahms melodies, played in the celli, that takes forever to unwind, and much patience and discipline, but you get it just right and it seems to float with no apparent effort (but in fact is so difficult to play in this way).

The 2nd movment features one of Brahms’ favorite instruments, the clarinet, genial and effortless, with little drama and much of a sense of gauzy languidness.

And don’t forget the opening movement, fierce and surging, concentrated and dense, packing a punch that the rest of the symphony seeks to diffuse.

Above all, Brahms seems to be writing this piece solely for himself, not for an audience that needs a flashy, big-boned ending, or fireworks in the inner movements where a scherzo ought to be placed.  No, it’s like a meditation on life – moving from youth to middle-age to the latter years, with grace, humility and a deep sense of one’s self and one’s place in the universe.

Man, I love this piece.