Happy B’day Brahms and Tchaikovsky!
Two of our favourite composers share a birthday tomorrow and we’ve complied some classical trivia and music to celebrate!
Two classical masters (and contemporary rivals) celebrate their birthday tomorrow (May 7). Brahms was born on this day in 1833 and Tchaikovsky a few years later in 1840.
We’ve compiled some trivia about the maestro’s for your next classical pub quiz and asked two of our team - senior developer (and oboist/bass guitarist!) Lukas Osterloh and musicologist Michael Kube for their favourite Brahms and/or Tchaikovsky recordings.
Happy listening!
Classic Trivia
Brahms
- Brahms hated French at school which resulted in a life long hatred of the nation. (He also hated the English).
- From the age of 10 Brahms helped to help his family income by playing the piano in dockside dance halls, cafes, theatres, inns and later brothels.
- Brahms was clean shaven until he was well past 40, then made up for it with a distinctive, flowing white beard. Though he had the chest development of a tall man, his legs were so short they barely reached his piano pedals.
- Brahms and was so intimidated by his Beethoven’s genius, he waited until he was 43 to produce his own first symphony. He wrote three more, plus two concertos for piano, one for violin, one for violin and cello and a series of chamber works.
- In later life, he was known for his rudeness. Once, as he left a party in Vienna, he said: “If there is someone here whom I have not insulted, I apologise.”
- Brahms also hated cats. The composer spent much time at his window in his Vienna home trying to hit neighbourhood cats with a harpoon manufactured from a bow and arrow. (Admittedly, this is said to be a rumour spread by Brahms’s nemesis Wagner!)
Tchaikovsky
- Tchaikovsky managed to write the longest ballet score of his career in a little over a month. The score for “Sleeping Beauty,” was written in 1889 and premiered in 1890 in St. Petersburg, Russia.
- In 1877, he married Antonina Ivanovna Milyukova despite professing to her during his proposal that he did not love her. They had met at the music conservatory in Moscow, where Milyukova had studied for a time and Tchaikovsky taught. They lived together for only six weeks before the composer’s friends, fearing for his mental health, arranged a permanent separation.
- Tchaikovsky supported financially for 13 years by Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy widow whom he never met. He dedicated his Symphony No. 4 in F minor to her.
- Tchaikovsky liked experimenting with new instrumentation for his compositions. In the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” he uses the celesta, an instrument that resembles a small upright piano in looks and produces a distinctive tinkling sound. The celesta was invented in 1886 and Tchaikovsky was one of the first composers to write music for it.
What’s your favourite Brahms or Tchaikovsky recording?
Dr Lukas Osterloh, IDAGIO’s Senior Backend and API Developer
Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony, B minor, op. 74 “Pathétique”
Tchaikovsky’s 6th, and last, symphony, is certainly one of the most fascinating and unusual pieces from the romantic orchestral repertoire. Even at first glance, the oddities of the symphony are quite striking. While composers did slowly start to deviate from the reasonably clear structural pattern of the symphony that was set by the likes of Haydn and Beethoven, this symphony challenges a whole range of assumptions at once.
For instance, it does not begin with a bang, but starts with a dark, lyrical bassoon motif, slowly building up to a progression through what feels like all human emotions compressed into those first twenty minutes, ending again on a very quiet note, as it started.
Then, the second movement surprises with the quite unusual time signature of 5/4, a movement that has often been described as a “limping waltz” — it feels like a dance, yet cannot be.
The third movement, a scherzo, feels on edge the entire time, an effect that is achieved, amongst other things, by superimposing different rhythmic structures, a technique also often employed by our other birthday child Johannes Brahms. The scherzo ends on a triumphant note, easily mistaken for the end of the symphony. But afterwards, there’s still another movement very unusual for a final — an elegy, a song of lament, slowly fading away into nothingness. An ominous ending, considering Tchaikovsky died only nine days after conducting the premiere of this piece, his final symphony.
Dr Michael Kube, Musicologist
Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor op. 25
Cold outside, but hot inside. Chamber and piano music by Brahms always sounds like a mixture of understated excitement and contrapuntal motion. You’ll imagine that by hearing this work twice. I prefer it because of its feverish atmosphere.
Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 in E minor op. 98
It’s hard to believe that Brahms only wrote four symphonies. I love all of them, but mostly the last one with its incredible finale: strictly regulated in form but passionate in expression. Toscanini’s interpretation gives the music emotional dimensions.
Brahms’s Hungarian Dances for Orchestra WoO 1 (extracts)
Everyone knows some of these gypsy inspired melodies, paired with passion, musical fire and melancholy. All these characteristics are very well crafted by Hungarian conductor Antal Dorati, one of my favourite masters of the baton.
Brahms’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major op. 77
Brahms worked on this composition long and hard. As a pianist he asked his violin playing friend Joseph Joachim’s support to finish the solo part. That resulted a great masterwork — here interpreted by the outstanding German violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan and the Berlin Philharmonic.
Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) op. 45
An awesome work. Composed on biblical sayings, Brahms’s music makes you think about mortality— without any specific religious impetus. Many years ago, when I was part in a big choir, we sang this sublime work in a concert; an unforgettable experience.
★HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRAHMS AND TCHAIKOVSKY!★
