Brahms/Holloway Symphony in F minor Op.34b

[Ilja]

Sorry John, I did indeed mean the A major. Typo, sorry.

[Alan Howe]

Perhaps we'd better get back to the Holloway orchestration...

[John Boyer]

Perhaps we'd better get back to the Holloway orchestration...

Looks like we'll just have to wait until it's available!

Personally, I look forward more to the Schumann variations.  It's seldom performed or recorded, one of Brahms's least known works, and I think the piano 4-hands format lends itself very well to orchestration. 

[Mark Thomas]

Holloway's orchestration is a fine piece of work and it gets an exciting performance from Mann and the London Symphony Orchestra but (you knew there was going to be a "but") if his intention was for it to sound like a symphony by Brahms then he's failed. There's no question, for me at least, that it convinces as a very grand symphony but, though the orchestration is certainly in the romantic style, it's too technicolour and brassy to be mistaken for Brahms' more sober work. Mann's interpretation is also sometimes quite driven, in the third and fourth movements especially, and this adds to the "full on" impression that one gets. I really enjoyed it and will definitely buy the commercial recording when it's released but if you're hoping for Brahms' "Nullte" then you'll be disappointed.

[Holger]

Just as a quick comment: Certainly, neither Holloway nor Schönberg had the intention to do an orchestration which sounds "like Brahms", and of course, both were / are perfectly aware of their result differing from Brahms' own approach, bearing their own fingerprint (even intentionally so), reflecting their own choices, their view on the music, a sort of composed interpretation. In this sense, Holloway certainly did not "fail".

[Mark Thomas]

I completely agree, he's done a great job. What I wrote was "if his intention was for it to sound like a symphony by Brahms then he's failed". It clearly wasn't his intention.

[eschiss1]

Further ... Mimicking the "style" of another person or era (to the point of quelching all of one's own artistic qualities) is one of those things whose point I don't see, to rephrase something I said earlier. Most of the most successful (for example Ravel's Tombeau!- French Baroque, not specifically Couperin's style) manage to cleverly mix two things, evoke one using the other, etc. (Something like an exact transcription of an organ work for piano, like Liszt's of Bach, is something of a partial exception- but qv what Walker writes about those.)

[Holger]

Just as a quick reply to Eric's comment (I perfectly understood Mark's, all OK here): true indeed. If Brian Newbould orchestrates (or even completes) Schubert fragments he will do it in a manner which is as close to Schubert as possible (even if of course, a perfect match is impossible) – in a way, it's something scholarly, also reflecting the possibilities of the instruments Schubert had access to and so on. However, once a composer like the ones discussed here deals with orchestrating, say, chamber music by Brahms or whatever, the point will almost never be an imitation but rather an adaption which reflects the creative personality of the arranger up to some degree – so, it's much more something artistic in this case: the question is no longer "What might Schubert (or ...) have done?" but rather "What do I want to do with the material, how do I perceive it?". Another example would be Paul Dessau's Symphonische Mozart-Adaption nach dem Quintett KV 615.

[eschiss1]

I heard that adaptation (of the E-flat quintet kv 614) for the first time in decades and second time ever earlier this month and- will write my brief thoughts somewhere. Interesting, surely.

[John Boyer]

[...] if his intention was for it to sound like a symphony by Brahms then he's failed. [...]it's too technicolour and brassy to be mistaken for Brahms' more sober work.

Oh, dear.

Those of you who are fans of Golden Age Hollywood, as I am, may remember the 1947 biopic "Song of Love", about the relationship of Brahms and the Schumanns. Paul Henreid and Katherine Hepburn played the Schumanns, with Robert Walker as Brahms. The film is not a great one, but I have always enjoyed it as a guilty pleasure. One contemporary critic succinctly put it when he said, "This is how Brahms and the Schumanns might have acted had they known they would later break into the movies."

The new Holloway orchestration, by your description, makes me think that perhaps this is how Brahms would have orchestrated had he known people would later listen to his music at home in surround sound.

Thanks for the warning.  I guess I will skip this one.

[Paul Mann]

It's been interesting reading some of the comments here about our new recording of three works by Brahms and Schumann in new orchestrations by Robin Holloway. Perhaps it's worth saying that there is certainly no intention on Robin's part to second-guess what the composers might themselves have done.  After all, there wouldn't be much point in that: if Brahms or Schumann had wanted to do it themselves, they would have done. For me, it's best understood as a dialogue between one composer and another at a very deep level of communion and understanding.  There is, I think, a considerable difference between an arrangement, or a scholarly reconstruction, and the work of a composer who chooses to recast the work of a colleague. Robin's entirely unique and original take on these pieces is certainly borne out of love for the music, but of course no amount of love would be enough on its own, without also the profoundest degree of understanding. I hope that those expressing scepticism will give these beautiful reimaginings a try.  After all, true masterpieces - and I think we can all agree that op.34 in either of its extant original guises is one of Brahms' very greatest works - can be appreciated from more than one point of view at the same time. 

[Mark Thomas]

Thank you, Paul, that's fascinating and I'm sure is the right approach to these works. For myself, I thought the Op.34b orchestration a most impressive achievement. Welcome to UC, by the way.

[eschiss1]

I noticed, too, that this recording was broadcast (of the Brahms/Holloway) on BBC Radio 3- yesterday (link valid for almost a month)...

[Alan Howe]

Thanks for your contribution, Paul. I was listening back to the broadcast today and was actually very impressed. I greatly look forward to the Toccata Classics release.

[John Boyer]

The discussion of the merits of this non-Brahmsian approach to Brahms got me to thinking about Tchaikovsky's "Mozartiana". I dug it out the other day and I've probably listened to it four times since. I just can't get enough of it. And to think that I used to hold a rather low opinion of it! Now I find it unceasingly delightful.

Tchaikovsky, of course, makes no attempt to orchestrate the work in the style of Mozart. He is at all times himself, yet the result is always charming. I'm not sure if this is enough to get me to purchase Holloway's Brahms, but it does make me realize, just like Ravel's take on Mussorgsky, that sometimes the approach works.