In Praise of Tradition - part 5

How they do Brahms in his hometown. The North German Radio Symphony of Hamburg, conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi - the great scion of the German tradition who for many years directed the Cleveland Orchestra and the Philharmonia in London. His brother was the mayor of Hamburg, and his uncle was DIETRICH BONHOEFFER. I love everything about Brahms: the heaviness, the Teutonic over-seriousness, the refusal to let go of any subject go before he's put it through every permutation, the refusal to move with the times. Old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud he may be - but Brahms refusal to move with the times wasn't conservatism for it's own sake. It was a statement that music's direction was moving away from engaging the listener as an equal to overwhelming the listener as though audiences are inferiors. That was not Brahms's way, even if was the way of Wagner and Liszt. I've loved his music for that quality ever since I was an eccentric three year old who memorized his third symphony. Brahms is the soundtrack of my life. Over the years I've heard Brahms live countless numbers of times played by many, many famous musicians. But no Brahms performance I've ever heard live compares with the performance I heard of this symphony given by Dohnanyi and the Philharmonia Orchestra when they came to the Kennedy Center on tour. Listening to this performance brings up many memories. Not only of the performance, but life at the time of the performance. And when you're at home re-arranging a Sublime song on a Saturday Night for the next day's rehearsal, that's exactly what you need.



(....parts 1-4 can be found on the OLD BLOG)