Brahms’s 5th Symphony
Posted in Classical on Jun 25th, 2009 No Comments »
There isn’t one, of course. But for some obscure reason Arnold Schoenberg felt the need of it. So he arranged Brahms’s 1st Piano Quartet for full symphony orchestra as a substitute.
It’s way over the top - massive orchestra, over 100, including xylophone! - and absurdly Romantic. It rather belies the notion of Schoenberg as the cold modernist. It has much in common with his own early Romantic works - ‘Transfigured Night’ and ‘Gurrelieder’ - lush, highly coloured tones, an almost sensual intensity. He explores Brahms like some demented Freudian psychoanalyst drawing out a hidden sexuality in the music barely hinted at in Brahms’s original.
It’s a travesty - but I adore it.
Here is the luscious slow movement, from a public concert on 1 November 1981 by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.
