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Hello everyone, greetings from Denmark.

Have you ever heard of a Japanese film called 'Late Spring' from 1949? I think you should, because not only is it my all-time favorite movie, it also has music by Joachim Raff in it.

The film is directed by the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, and it's a simple story about an old man who wants his young daughter to marry. It is tender and heart-warming and quite a masterpiece. You can find it on YouTube.



It's funny because, at the beginning of the movie the old father, who is a professor, is talking with his young assistant about the composer Franz Liszt. As we know Joachim Raff had once worked as an assistant to Liszt. Then later in the movie we see the young assistant at a concert where he is listening to the music by - Raff. Is this a coincidence? Well, probably, but it's so much fun to imagine it isn't. Especially in a movie as meticulously made as this one. Bye

Hello everybody!

I have just heard Dohnanyi's variations on a Nursery Song, Op. 25. What a marvelous and very amusing work, I think. Dohnanyi very cleverly imitates the styles of Brahms, Saint-Saëns and many others. I wonder whether the seventh variation is an imitation of Raff. It sounds very much like him, I think.
It would be nice to know whether I'm right or not.


By the way, can any of you also hear a giant butterfly (!) in the opening of Brahms's second string quintet? (sounds silly doesn't it, but there it is)
Such a lovely work, and what a remarkable composer Brahms was. So clever (and so secret)


Thank you

Greetings from Denmark!

I have a question, not about Raff I'm afraid, but about Brahms (although Raff has something to do with it). I have recently heard the season symphonies (wonderful) and I'm now wondering whether Brahms also had the seasons in mind when he wrote his four symphonies.

Well...couldn't the last movement of his first symphony for example be the arrival of spring? And could the unusually quiet ending of his third symphony be the end of summer and beginning of autumn?

I don't know....my brother laughed at me when I told him this idea and he knows more about classical music than I do.

What do you think?

I also hear the four seasons in Johan Svendsen's four Norwegian Rhapsodies, but here I am more certain.