Brahms invents the tritone sub. Prehistory of the min-6 dim scale.

[Christian Miller]

It's Brahms... Brahms fourth racket

More irrelevant musings.




Context - the finale is an evolved form of a ground bass Chaconne that Brahms consciously adapted from Bach, the chaconne master. So this is a set of variations not on the theme but on the bass, baroque style. This is very rare for a symphony and al the musicologists lost their sh*t over it.

Also, like Master of Puppets, it's in Em.

Only replies in the style of Basil Fawlty will be tolerated on this thread.

[BWV]

Can we mention the war?

[Bach5G]

He’s from Barcelona.

[pauln]

"You know something, you disgust me.
I know what people like you get up to
and I think it's disgusting."


And here's the sound to the score @29.30

[BWV]

The first symphony opens with another bit of tasty chromatic harmony over a pedal

[Bach5G]

I played trombone on this about a month ago. Lovely piece of music. The horns and brass nailed the chorale in the 4th mvmt.

[RJVB]

All good and well and very interesting Christian, but maybe you need to refresh your definition of "prehistory" or else explain why this is an example?

(I realise this can lead to interesting paradoxes in the context of music that rarely writes down the probably essence of what makes it itself )

[Christian Miller]

All good and well and very interesting Christian, but maybe you need to refresh your definition of "prehistory" or else explain why this is an example?

Not tonight, Josephine

(I realise this can lead to interesting paradoxes in the context of music that rarely writes down the probably essence of what makes it itself )

If you say so, chief!

[Christian Miller]

I played trombone on this about a month ago. Lovely piece of music. The horns and brass nailed the chorale in the 4th mvmt.

Nice! Sang the Requiem recently but not an orchestral player so that’s as close as I get. Must be a blast playing that!


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[Bach5G]

TBH, it was a profoundly moving moment.

[Christian Miller]

The video

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[dasein]

I know this is a bold statement, but I'm beginning to think that this Brahms fellow might be pretty good at composing.

[Bach5G]

Playing Brahms 4 in a couple of weeks. Will be listening for that tritone sub!

[RJVB]

I forwarded this thread to a friend and former teacher who played this symphony several times but also plays jazz(guitar), and got this in reply (freely translated from Dutch):

Search YouTube for "tritone sub augmented 6th" and you'll find many different theoretical stories. [...] It is often said that in classical music, the #6-chords tend towards the dominant (e.g. Ab#6-G-C instead of Dm-G-C) while in jazz the tritone subs tend towards the tonic (Dm-Db7 - C instead of Dm - G - C).
The Brahms symphony is in E, and the penultimate F thus indeed a tritone sub. But when I listen I feel the tonal centre to be A min (because of the beginning) and then that F chord F becomes a very traditional #6 that wants to go towards the dominant E. YMMV......

[sgcim]

I remember sitting in a Chamber Music of the Classical Period in Uni, and hearing a blatant 7th#9 chord in a Haydn string quartet. I almost fell out of my seat.
I yelled at the teacher. "How could he do that?! I thought Jimi Hendrix invented that chord in "Purple Haze". I couldn't resist adding.
The teacher ignored my Hendrix joke, and just said "He liked to play musical jokes on the Royalty that he was a servant of."
One teacher of a Piano Music of the Romantic Period class was going to play a piece by Chopin at a concert, and he made us study the piece before he played it. It had nothing interesting except one solo line that used a combination of the whole tone and diminished scales that seemed to come out of nowhere.
I learned it on the guitar, sang it, played it on the piano, till it was branded on my brain.
At the concert, when he played that line, it was like I could see it on a movie marquee. I let out a little noise of ecstasy that annoyed everyone in the audience. I asked my teacher where Freddy got that line from, he said, "I dunno".
As for the Brahms, I'm too tired to look at all that stuff-tl;dr. Someday, I'll comment on it, and I'm sure that will be a historical day!

[RJVB]

I asked my teacher where Freddy got that line from, he said, "I dunno".

Probably the best answer ... but maybe the Green Fairy whispered it in Chopin's ears (or inspired him to hammer out random chords until he got something "interesting" which he then wove into a proper piece)?

[Christian Miller]

I remember sitting in a Chamber Music of the Classical Period in Uni, and hearing a blatant 7th#9 chord in a Haydn string quartet. I almost fell out of my seat.
I yelled at the teacher. "How could he do that?! I thought Jimi Hendrix invented that chord in "Purple Haze". I couldn't resist adding.
The teacher ignored my Hendrix joke, and just said "He liked to play musical jokes on the Royalty that he was a servant of."
One teacher of a Piano Music of the Romantic Period class was going to play a piece by Chopin at a concert, and he made us study the piece before he played it. It had nothing interesting except one solo line that used a combination of the whole tone and diminished scales that seemed to come out of nowhere.
I learned it on the guitar, sang it, played it on the piano, till it was branded on my brain.
At the concert, when he played that line, it was like I could see it on a movie marquee. I let out a little noise of ecstasy that annoyed everyone in the audience. I asked my teacher where Freddy got that line from, he said, "I dunno".
As for the Brahms, I'm too tired to look at all that stuff-tl;dr. Someday, I'll comment on it, and I'm sure that will be a historical day!

Can you tell me the piece?


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[sgcim]

Can you tell me the piece?


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It was so long ago, I'm lucky I could remember the composers..

[Christian Miller]

Freddy Choppin


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[RJVB]

Freddy Choppin

Are we thinking of the same Freddy (Chopeen, rather)? Ever seeing Chopin referred to as Freddy above I've been reminded of a motorcycling friend who went by the pseudo "marcury" but when he started talking about how his bike had a squeak ("elle couine") he became "Fraddy"

[Jonah]

Reading this thread I think again that jazz musicians often see classical music in totally different focus (even though historically there are factual connections between genres, the essence has changed much)

it is like looking at the Botticelli’s painting and saying: ok, nothing really interesting except these two yellow and blue spots set together, or this line is drawn really beautifully I should borrow it…

without noticing that the line is a part of the figure of angel outline, and the spots are the colours of actual objects ( distanced in perspective even)

[RJVB]

Funny how you mention painting (from an appropriate era, even): painting is a rather common source of examples and metaphors to illustrate classical music teaching with. After all a lot of music is "painting with sounds" (often fresco painting, i.e. things to be perceived from a distance).

[Christian Miller]

Reading this thread I think again that jazz musicians often see classical music in totally different focus (even though historically there are factual connections between genres, the essence has changed much)

it is like looking at the Botticelli’s painting and saying: ok, nothing really interesting except these two yellow and blue spots set together, or this line is drawn really beautifully I should borrow it…

without noticing that the line is a part of the figure of angel outline, and the spots are the colours of actual objects ( distanced in perspective even)

TBF my appreciation of this movement is not limited to the fact that he writes a funny chord in the first few bars.

[Jonah]

TBF my appreciation of this movement is not limited to the fact that he writes a funny chord in the first few bars.

my comment was more inspired by Freddie C. story…

anyway I do not mind if someone makes the use out of anything (I just feel sad sometimes…when something that is a real complex live character to me seems just a set of meaningless gestures to somebody, it really gives a feeling to which extent we can be strangers to each other , being so similar in superficial things)

and also there are different cases: when you look at Cezanne it is really objects in real enviroment but both abstract figures on flat surface.. so much closer to Rothko…

[sgcim]

Are we thinking of the same Freddy (Chopeen, rather)? Ever seeing Chopin referred to as Freddy above I've been reminded of a motorcycling friend who went by the pseudo "marcury" but when he started talking about how his bike had a squeak ("elle couine") he became "Fraddy"

If You think that's bad, we had Charles Rosen teaching a course on French Literature and Music, and this bass player used to call him 'Charlie'.
I wanted to do my paper on Balzac, and Rosen started belittling my taste in literature. I told a friend who reads a lot of French Literature about that, and he was disgusted with Rosen's attitude toward Balzac, to the point that he started using a lot of expletives.