It's a perverse fascination, because I really detested the Brahms pieces I studied as a piano student. When played well they are utterly sublime, but I never really had the aptitude to make that possible. The lack wasn't so much technique as the awareness of an aesthetic gap in my pianism. My mood was always more attuned to Mozart and middle Beethoven, with generous lashings of Rachmaninov, Liszt, Ravel and Messiaen. The organ chorales are a steady feature of my pre-service menu at funerals, but they belong to a totally different world.
My absolute favorite Brahms piece is the f-minor piano quintet, but that's a swoon for another day. Instead, here's the Op 101 piano trio in c-minor. The performance here is quite amazing in its intensity.
I: Allegro energico
II: Presto non assai
III: Andante non grazioso
IV: Allegro molto
The first time I heard the presto, I nearly fell out of my chair. There's a couple of entrancing moments where the piano and violin play a modal mixture tag game. It's a really elementary technique that's taught in first year harmony: a minor chord is followed immediately by the same chord using the major form. The technique rests on the sense of a single chord being transfigured from a darker sound to a lighter one. Brahms is the original master of springing the modal mixture on an unsuspecting listener.
This reminded me of a similar moment in Charles Stanford's motet, Beati quorum via, which I know from having sung and conducted quite a few times over the years. So, as a little extension of the music appreciation session, here's the piece sung in a recent performance by the choir of Westminster Abbey. The modal mixture comes at around 1.40 in the video, where the word beati is repeated in long notes.
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