VIDEO: Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2 by Johannes Brahms

[michael_sayers]

This is from a series of test recordings done at home of excerpts of various compositions to hear how they would sound.

[eldergeek]

Please! - make it stop ...

[verqueue]

Why do you play it like this?
Also you forgot about middle part of this piece...

[michael_sayers]

Why do you play it like this?
Also you forgot about middle part of this piece...

I always play music the closest I can to the way I hear it in my mind.  For most compositions I have many - and also quite diverse - interpretations stored there, but in the end I always do whatever is most personally satisfying.

The remainder of the composition wasn't forgotten about; an hour of test recording wasn't needed, just short excerpts to see the response on the recording to various textures.

Maybe I'll record the Op. 118 No. 2 by Brahms during a session this summer.

I was thinking of other things though, including some music by living composers, and some of the Liszt Concert Etudes - and also the beautiful and majestic Prayer from Grieg's Olav Trygvasson but in a more pianistic setting than either Grieg's transcription or the slight variation of it which is heard here:

Recording plans are very undecided right now in specifics.

[stevensk]

Please..stop it!

1) Tune your piano
2 ) Take piano lessons
3) Never play piano when you are drunk (..if you have an audience)

[verqueue]

I always play music the closest I can to the way I hear it in my mind.  For most compositions I have many - and also quite diverse - interpretations stored there, but in the end I always do whatever is most personally satisfying.

But why did you named it "Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2 by Johannes Brahms"? It's your variation about  this piece, but not this this piece...

[michael_sayers]

But why did you named it "Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2 by Johannes Brahms"? It's your variation about  this piece, but not this this piece...

Hi verqueue,

If you don't like something it is best just to say it.  Life is way too short for rhetorical discussions about whether or not a piece title is correct.  As you may be aware, Busoni had some things to say about "variation" in his Sketch for a New Aesthetic of Music . . .

[verqueue]

But I've already said it... But if you need I can put it straight: I don't like that you named this topic and your recording "Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2 by Johannes Brahms", because it's not Bramhs and it's not his Intermezzo op. 118 no 2. If I listen to recording of "Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2 by Johannes Brahms" I expect to hear this certain piece, and enjoy it, because I like this piece very much. But I can't, because you played something else instead of this piece. And now I'm just sad with what you've done.

[michael_sayers]

But I've already said it... But if you need I can put it straight: I don't like that you named this topic and your recording "Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2 by Johannes Brahms", because it's not Bramhs and it's not his Intermezzo op. 118 no 2. If I listen to recording of "Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2 by Johannes Brahms" I expect to hear this certain piece, and enjoy it, because I like this piece very much. But I can't, because you played something else instead of this piece. And now I'm just sad with what you've done.

It is an interesting discussion, because it also is one of my favourites out of all of Brahms' sets of short form piano works . . . and many, maybe all, of the others are extraordinary too, not just this one.

If I didn't like the composition tremendously, I would never have thought to record any of it.

[but then you would say that that I didn't record any of it  ]

[chopinlover01]

[but then you would say that that I didn't record any of it  ]

Because you didn't..

[lostinidlewonder]

I'll go against the grain here, I actually enjoyed the playing and expression was certainly different to how it's usually played but that's ok! Music can be about self expression, it's not always about playing for others.