Light On Dark Water

It seemed natural to go on from my tour of the Beethoven piano concertos to those of Brahms. There are only two, so this will be a shorter journey. And I'm sorry to say that it isn't off to a great start. 

I followed my self-imposed rule which says that I have to listen to a work at least three times before stating, at least publicly, an opinion on it. After my first hearing, I said to a friend that I was not enthusiastic. After two more, that remains a reasonable two-word summary of my reaction. Or I can reduce it to one word: unenthused.

It's not that I don't like the piece. I like parts of it very much, and I think I love the second movement. But I feel somewhat defeated by the first movement. It's lengthy, as seems often to be the case with 19th century concertos, running about as long as the other two movements together. That's not a bad thing in itself, obviously, but I feel as if it doesn't know exactly where it is going, or how to get there. One adjective that comes quickly to mind is "jagged." It's a troubled piece–which, again, is hardly a bad thing in itself–but it seems troubled not only in mood but in the sense that its movement is irregular and inconsistent. It seems episodic, a series of fairly distinctive passages of which some are notably more enjoyable than others. There is relatively little of the rich melodic melancholy that I associate with Brahms. The opening theme, treated at some length there and recurring frequently, initially struck me as almost harsh. I liked it better after the third hearing, but remained…unenthused. Others may hear it as dramatic, in a Beethoven's-Fifth-sort-of-way; I wouldn't argue with them, but it didn't have that effect on me.

The second movement is beautiful, ten or twelve minutes of the somber lyrical Brahms. I might come back to it now and then as a stand-alone piece. As for the third, well, it ought to have something like the joyful appeal of the final movements of several of the Beethoven concertos, but to my taste it falls flat. 

It's not surprising that I haven't embraced this concerto. It was apparently not very well received when first performed in 1858, though appreciation grew over time. Perhaps more to the point, it was composed when Brahms was in the midst of a crisis in his relationship to Robert and Clara Schumann. The crisis proper was Robert's–in bad mental and physical health, he attempted suicide in 1854, and Brahms began work on the concerto shortly thereafter, completing the first version in 1856, the year in which Robert died. Why should it not, then, be "troubled"?

I may come back to it one of these days, and perhaps discover that it really is the great work some say it is. But for now I'm ready to move on to the 2nd concerto.

This is the recording I listened to, because it's the one that I happen to own. As with a number of my LPs that were acquired secondhand after the advent of the CD, it's entirely possible that I had never heard it before. Presumably it's a good performance, but if or when I get back to the first concerto, I'll try a different one. As you can see, it's a two-LP set that includes both concertos, so I will be listening to this second as well.