It’s Complicated

With both Tchaikovsky and Brahms celebrating their birthdays today, we puzzled over how to salute two of the very-beloved but least-lucky-in-love composers. Fortunately, Some ecards had us covered.

You can also download our concert from earlier this season featuring both (with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6, the aptly named Pathétique, which the Orchestra reprises in Munich tonight as part of EUROPE / SPRING 2013, and Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 featuring Rudolf Buchbinder) by clicking here.

с днем рождения and Alles Gute zum Geburtstag!

Our Heart Brahms Over

We’ve been crushing on Brahms for a while now, but we’re glad to see other people catching on…

fuckyeahhistorycrushes:

Johannes Brahms, 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897

German romantic-era composer and pianist

 When Brahms was twenty years old he was described by peers as ‘…Youthful, almost boyish looking, a shy but friendly-looking Apollo.’ It may be a bit unfair to post two images of him together, but I believe he was just as breathtakingly handsome in his adult years.

“ Since the time of Paganini, violin virtuosos have tried to overwhelm audiences with feats of agility. Tetzlaff is after something different. A character actor in a field of matinée idols, he prefers to disappear into the sound world he creates onstage. ‘You become the thing,’ he says. ‘Or that’s the hope.’ ”

— 

Jeremy Eicher on Christian Tetzlaff in The New Yorker, August 27, 2012. Hear him play Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the Philharmonic this week. 

From the Radio Room … with Christian Tetzlaff

Violinist Christian Tetzlaff joined us this morning following the Open Rehearsal of Brahms’s Violin Concerto with the Philharmonic, led by Andris Nelsons. He remarked that it is “the greatest possible job” to work with Orchestra and the conductor he considers to be almost like his Siamese twin.

Catch the interview as part of the intermission feature when this week’s program airs on The New York Philharmonic This Week on WQXR 105.9FM, Thursday, February 28 at 8:00 p.m.*

*Check local listings

Spend Some Time with Brahms

He’s at home in this slide from the Philharmonic’s Digital Archives collection. From the comfort of your own home, check out Leonard Bernstein’s marked score of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, which Christian Tetzlaff performs with the Orchestra in concerts tonight through Saturday, It’s part of the Philharmonic’s season-long exploration of the composer’s complete symphonies and concertos.

Where in the World is Alan Gilbert?

In Hamburg, where today he rehearsed the NDR Symphony Orchestra (where he is Principal Guest Conductor) in Brahms’s Double Concerto for Violin and Cello as well as Bruckner’s Ninth, for performances January 31 and February 1 (and in Kiel on February 2).

Stand by for what’s next!

“Brahms writes very clumsily for the piano, which is surprising because he was himself a pianist.”

So notes Yefim Bronfman, in this Wall Street Journal profile. The pianist discusses his current fixation on the composer’s work, including the Piano Concerto No. 1, which he performs with the Philharmonic this week.. 

Just Good Friends?

“I can do nothing but think of you,” wrote Johannes Brahms to Clara Schumann in 1855. 

The relationship between the composer and the widow of composer Robert Schumann, a distinguished pianist and composer in her own right, has long been the subject of speculation, fueled in part by the passion expressed in their letters to each other.

“Who knows better than yourself … how enthusiastically and deeply I absorb everything that comes from you,” wrote Clara to Johannes in 1860.  

Wherever the truth lies, Brahms relied on Clara for advice on his works, such as the Piano Concerto No. 1, performed this week by Yefim Bronfman and the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Lorin Maazel. 

Masur on Masur

Philharmonic Music Director Emeritus Kurt Masur (here with self-portrait) continues his kick-off of our season-long Brahms cycle, leading the Philharmonic in performances tonight and tomorrow of the composer’s Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4. Learn more about Kurt Masur’s story at Classicalite.

(Reuters photos)