Brahms Performance Practice

This book brings together a combination of primary source research and a thorough reading of secondary literature as relates to performance of the music of Brahms. It considers in detail issues of Brahms's preferences in terms of instruments, instrumental approach, the meanings of fundamental notational symbols such as the slur, orchestral size, tempo and tempo flexibility, Brahms's preferred performers, the use of the style hongroise in the appropriate works and wider questions of exoticism and orientalism as pertain to performance, Brahms's use of phrasing and metrical displacement and writing for the voice. Rather than dealing with these subjects in a generalized manner, it includes ample specific examples in order to suggest how 'applied performance practice research' might operate. In so doing, it draws upon analytical work on Brahms in order to elucidate how performance strategies might articulate various underlying aspects of the music. It involves new findings in terms of sources relating to Brahms's use of the slur, his preferences regarding the orchestra, his own activities as a performer (on the basis of contemporary reviews), and his relationship with particular conductors. There is also an in-depth look at Brahms's engagement with folk music, suggestions of possible Turkish allusions, and their implications for performance. Throughout, sufficient source material (in the original language as well as in translations, some new) is provided for readers to be able to evaluate for themselves. Brahms's letters and the memoirs of those who knew him in particular have been widely sourced. The engagement of Brahms with earlier music, often used as models for his own work, and the implications of such engagement for performance, is a recurrent concern throughout the book. Case studies include Brahms's First Symphony, Piano Concerto No. 2, Liebeslieder and Neues Liebeslieder, String Quintet in G Op. 111, Klavierstÿcke Op. 118 and Clarinet Sonata in E-flat Op. 120 No. 2.