What is your single "must-have on a desert island" work besides Mahler?

[barry guerrero]

Aaargh! I'd sooner kill myself than make Brahms orchestral music my desert isle choice. I would take punk, heavy metal, rap - anything but Brahms. Actually, that's not quite true, because I would go drown myself in the lagoon before being forced to listen to nothing but Vivaldi. Brahms would be pure Mahler in comparison.

[Polarius T]

There is a captivating and beautiful deserted-island story by Adolfo Bioy-Casares (a personal friend and soulmate of Borges, regarded by the latter as the "true and secret master") that explains the choice the best: the long-suffering governor of an abandoned and forgotten penal colony, after quietly perfecting his techniques of neurosensory manipulation, succeeds in transmuting his own pain sensations into auditory sensations and thereonafter no longer feels pain but hears, forever, the beginning of the first movement of Brahms's Symphony in E Minor... (B4). (Plan for Escape, trans. Suzanne Jill Levine.)

'nuff said.

Maybe you just haven't heard Abbado's Brahms?

 

PT

[john haueisen]

I guess that in fairness, I should listen to the Abbado Brahms, but my first impression about Brahms would be to agree with Mahler, that Brahms did not really have much to say.  Yes, he said it very well, but it did not have the depth and variety of Mahler's music.

[Leo K]

Polarius,

It's nice to hear there is another fan of the Abbado Brahms out there. 

I personally feel Mahler's opinion on Brahms is kinda vague...afterall, what can music really say?  But if I compare the orchestral palette between Brahms and Mahler, I get a feeling Mahler found Brahms too intellectual perhaps, or dry. 

Yet under the right orchestra/conducter Brahms can be the world, and he is under Abbado's wand.

--Todd

[john haueisen]

Touche, Leo K!   Perhaps the fates conspired to validate your admiration of Brahms.
Just after I had made the remark about Mahler questioning Brahms, I went back to reading Natalie Bauer-Lechner.  Nearly immediately I came upon some remarks that were very complimentary to Brahms, so I guess you were entirely right about how Mahler was really rather vague about Brahms.  Probably, it was a case of Mahler's "hot & cold" mood swings.  I'd guess he did not like Brahms' attitude toward Wagner, but I doubt that just after hearing Brahms done well, that Mahler would have anything but praise for him--something that's probably true for most of us too!   

[barry guerrero]

Let me tell you, I just listened to the Borodin 2nd symphony (Rattle/Berlin - after not having heard it for many years - and I'd take that over any of the  Brahms symphonies (as a desert isle disc, that is). For me, the best Brahms symphony is Dvorak 7. I'd take D6 or D7 over Brahms anyday as well. If I had to choose any work by Brahms, it would be the "Liebeslieder Walzer". Why?   .    .   Because I feel it's the most honest work by Brahms: a bunch of Germans sitting around in an overly upholstered parlor, singing loudly at each other in 3/4 time. What could be more genuinely honest than that? If it had to be one of the symphonies; for me, it would be the 3rd. I feel that the 3rd is the most "complete" of Brahms' symphonies - the one with the fewest deficiencies. That's just me.

Barry

[barry guerrero]

I'll add one other thing regarding Brahms:  his 1st orchestral Serenade would be my desert isle pick before any of the symphonies. Sorry, but that's how I feel. It's far more uninhibited.

[John Kim]

If it had to be one of the symphonies; for me, it would be the 3rd. I feel that the 3rd is the most "complete" of Brahms' symphonies - the one with the fewest deficiencies. That's just me.

Barry

Yes, Barry, that's what I have been telling my friends for years. B3rd is the least manipulated, cooked up, the most honest and direct of all the Brahms symphonies. It's one of my favorite symphonies by any composer. Thanks for brining this point up.

John,

[Polarius T]

I'll add one other thing regarding Brahms:  his 1st orchestral Serenade would be my desert isle pick before any of the symphonies...

That'd be a consideration, if played like these guys do it:



PT

[Leo K]

I like your style PT! 

[Polarius T]

As you can tell, Todd, I picked up all my features from you (except I couldn't figure out how to turn on that "Five-Star Hero Gold Member" line).

PT