Tag Archives: johannes brahms

Brahms Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2

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Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Johannes Brahms was a German Romantic composer, pianist, and conductor. He wrote solo piano music, chamber music, symphonnies, piano concertos, a requiem, and organ works. Some of his first compositions were written for the pipe organ. Brahms had a dream of becoming an organ virtuoso, but abandoned that idea because he struggled to play the organ well. Instead, Brahms became a piano virtuoso. He gave the premiere performances of his piano concertos. Brahms music is full of various rhythms, meters, and counterpoint. His introduction to Hungarian and gypsy folk music at a young age influenced his compositional style, and explains his fascination with irregular rhythms and use of rubato (robbed time) in his music. Brahms’ music was traditional in the sense that he used traditional classical forms when writing his music. His music was a complete contrast to the bombastic, showy “modern” music of the time such as that of Franz Liszt. Liszt apparently thought that Brahms’ music was too “hygienic”, and Brahms disapproved of Liszt’s music, apparently falling asleep during one of Liszt’s piano recitals during a performance Liszt gave of his b minor piano sonata. 

Julius Katchen (1926-1969)

Julius Katchen was an American pianist who is especially well known for his recordings of Johannes Brahms’ piano music. He made his debut performance when he was 10 years old, playing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor. Conductor Eugene Ormandy heard about young Julius and invited him to play in New York with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Julius Katchen studied music with his grandparents Mandell and Rosalie Svet until he turned 14. His grandparents taught piano at the Moscow and Warsaw Conservatories. In 1947 Katchen toured Europe and moved to Paris, France. He died of cancer at the age of 42 in 1969.

Julius Katchen’s solo piano recordings of the works of Johannes Brahms are very popular among pianists, and those recordings are often described as one of the best recordings of Brahms’ piano works. 

In this recording, Julius Katchen plays Brahms’ Intermezzo Op. 118, No.2 from his Op. 118 six pieces. I hope that you enjoy this beautiful piano piece. 

Johannes Brahms 1889 wax cylinder recordings

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Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Johannes Brahms was a 19th century German composer, pianist, and conductor. Today he is best known for his German Requiem, his 4 symphonies, piano concerto, violin concerto, and many pieces for solo piano.

On December 2, 1889, Johannes Brahms was recorded playing two pieces on the piano at the home of Dr. Fellinger and his wife in Vienna, Austria by Theo Wangemann (a associate of Thomas Edison who was the world’s first recording engineer). Brahms played a segment of his Hungarian Dance No. 1 in g minor, and a paraphrase of a Josef Strauss Polka called die Libelle. The wax cylinder was made of soft wax and the earliest cylinders were damaged after each play rendering them unplayable after they had been used only a few times. The Fellinger family no doubt cherished this historic recording and played it many times. It became cracked and badly worn. The recording was played many years later on a radio station and somebody recorded the broadcast. The recording was later transferred onto a disc and many people tried to get rid of the surface noise to better expose the music hidden underneath. Musicologists and mathematicians are still working on it to try and de-noise the recording but it is proving to be very difficult. What they most likely will end up doing is using a clean modern recording of the music and figuring out approximately what is being played where and adjust the tempo and the note lengths. This recording is important because it is a time capsule into the past and can tell musicologists and performing musicians how people in the 19th century may have played the piano. They didn’t play the way pianists play now with a strict unbending tempo. There was a lot of tempo variation and the right and left hands didn’t always play strictly together. Enjoy this rare recording.