You're right.

Because sleep is essential to your body?

@@apostolismoschopoulos1876 But Brahms and Richard Atkinson are essential to your mind :p

Me too! 😊😍

That license plate pretty much sums up my philosophy in life. Sadly, I live in a country that likes bombs a lot more than Brahms.

@@Richard.Atkinson And that lady lived in a beautiful quiet Frank Lloyd Wright house. It was perfect.

I share what you say, John. Richard Atkinson is a shining light in a world of sometimes slipping standards. His eloquence & analysis is so refreshing & much needed.

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/nMmZlNumv7-aqnU.html and I have quoted your comment there.

Out of curiosity, Is Rachmaninoff one of your fav composer? . how do you feel about his late works, that are much more harmonically dense, and (like what Maestro Ashkenazy said, the harmony in late Rachmaninoff often feels like its closing and moving inward instead of his other works which open out a bit more) like the symphonic dances, paginini and corelli variations, 3rd symphony, btw just curious - Would be cool to make some new music friends here :3

@@samaritan29 if you're asking about me personally, yes Rachmaninoff is one of my favorite composers. I'm not so sure about Ashkenazy's remarks; it seems hard to define what "closing and moving inward" is. Like there are plenty of instances in R's early/middle period of melodies moving down. Although certainly his later harmonies/colors/orchestration have a different emotion/quality to them compared to his earlier works. Anywho I like all of Rachmaninoff's music, not just the late works. One thing I would like to mention is that R is often misaligned in more "academic" discussions, in my opinion unfairly. In my own personal estimation he was a very fine craftsman of both counterpoint and thematic transformation. Perhaps check out Ashish Xiangyi Kumar's channel for a more in depth rundown of R's ingenuity in these arenas.

@Daniel Rui What I was trying to say in late Rachmaninoff is that whereas his early and middle works always have harmony that opens out and develops, in the late period, the harmony closes in - like it becomes progressively darker and darker. Of course intratonal chromatic harmony is a trademark in his later music, and the gradual chromaticizing of the tonal fabric was already evident in the op 33 tableaux, but to me his use of harmony in the latest works is an interesting stylistic change. His early/middle works such as the 2nd and 3rd piano concerto, there is a lot of Russian sadness and nostalgia. Conversely Rachmaninoff is equally as inclined (as Mr Ashkenazy says) to ‘speak out the preoccupation with the wonders and luxuriousness of life’. Whereas his later works signify a withdrawal from life, and to me this is much sadder, I think his inability to go back to Russia and this homesickness constantly pervades in his late works, and this is reflected in his harmony. For instance, the 2nd theme from the 2nd piano concerto’s first movement, or the second symphony's central tune, its constantly opening up and rising, always giving out and away, as if its trying to open out everything it has for the listener, and to the world. In comparison, his later work’s no longer embrace this, like the 3rd symphony’s 2nd movement, or the symphonic dance’s central tune, it's never giving out and rising anymore but falls instead . Both in terms of its melodic lines, and the harmony, which to me, closes inward. Im not sure if this is just a superficial observation - I like all of Rachmaninoff music, in fact, his middle period works (isle of the dead, the D minor piano sonata) are the ones that I would go out of my way for, but I just think its interesting to note the development of these great composers.

​@@samaritan29 Late Rachmaninoff is just my favorite, Rach used to be my favorite composer but he was eventually replaced by Mahler and Berg, but still late Rachmaninoff in particular has stuck with me. I love the way the harmony "closes inward," I've always though I've been one of the only people to take up this somewhat unpopular observation but it's cool to see fellow music lovers do as well. That kind of chromatic harmony is really interesting to me, I'm a huge fan of the Second Viennese School but back when I wasn't it was this really advanced chromaticism so rampant in Rachmaninoff that made me chase harmonically dense music(Wagner/Strauss/Scriabin etc), evolving into my love of intense atonal music(Berg in particular). I searched for theory books that in the "chromaticism" section talked about more than just Augmented 6th Chords and Secondary Dominants. This was surprisingly hard to find, and the only book that does this to the Nth degree without delving into far-fetched neo-Riemannian theory is Arnold Schoenberg's own "Harmonielehre". It would be really cool if after this amazing Brahms series, Richard did some kind of talk on high chromaticism, perhaps with examples from Rachmaninoff's 3rd symphony, or other works of formal cohesion that speak in that chromatic language. Richard is just so great that I feel like a series or video like this would be welcomed by his subscribers such as you and I, who are clearly interested in the same kinds of topics. By the way, you may know it but since you didn't include it in your list, check out "The Bells" by Rachmaninoff, his cantata for choir soloists and orchestra(as well as his favorite work from his output). The 4th movement especially is filled with these incredible harmonies and an probably the first sign of his later affect: introverted, somewhat cold, hopelessly sad, but with so much room for dramatic outburst and apotheosis. It's nice to find someone who has the same niche taste that I do, I'll always love late Rachmaninoff(especially that 3rd symphony).

@@asherkalfus2450 Yes, I have always admired Rachmaninoff's compositional craft - I love his choral symphony - 'the bells' and the all night vigil, the dense polyphony and incredible harmonies pave way for those brilliant ecstatic moments. He may not have been particularly groundbreaking in comparison to the aforementioned composers of the romantic genre (Mahler, berg, Schoenberg) but as Mr Ashkenazy puts it “his Russian soul” is what makes him special to me. Its not only apparent in the soulful yearning quality when one hears the Russian Orthodox church bells/chants, but it is in his late works especially that have this almost ‘off kilter’ harmony that draws me is, and exemplifies his homesickness, and resignation of life.

That’s also my favorite part!

Someone needs to make a video series navigating Haydn's string quartets and symphonies. Which ones are the "good ones"? Which ones are seldom performed these days but totally rip? There's still enough quarantine left to rope some bored graduate student into this I hope.

"it's for heads"

I completely agree, and I’ve never understood the justification for skipping a repeat when the composer went to the trouble of writing out a first and second ending that are different (and as you point out, have very different effects).

One thing that blows my mind though is that apparently the introduction was only included after the first couple of performances! I mean, it was very clearly composed last or at least not first, but the idea of the movement without it is just crazy to me.

@@daniellarson6279 It blows my mind to think of many similar things. Like can you imagine Beethoven's 9th Symphony with a purely instrumental finale based on the material he later used in the Op. 132 string quartet (this was his original plan)! Some pieces seem so perfectly planned that it's funny when we find out what was in the sketches. If you watch my video on the first movement of Brahms's 4th, I point out another of these: he originally started the symphony with a plagal cadence in the winds before the main theme.

@@Richard.Atkinson I've never really understood why repeats are skipped at all. Like if the composer wrote a repeat, they obviously meant it to be repeated, and I feel like not taking the repeat is a disservice. No matter if it's a recapitulation repeat in a Mozart piano sonata or a long exposition repeat in a symphony like those of Brahms and Dvorak, I feel this way. I feel particularly strong about the Mozart recapitulation repeat case cause in my opinion, when I hear a Mozart piece that has a recapitulation repeat and that repeat isn't taken, it feels very lopsided to me and not in a good way.

Along with Rimsky-Korsakov's and Taneyev's.

In context of this symphony however this de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Johannes_Brahms,_1876.jpg is what he looked like. ;)

Wow! I did not know that! ... of course, this changes EVERYTHING....

Yes! Here's my Patreon: www.patreon.com/RichardAtkinson

I'm going to be doing a lot more Shostakovich soon (quartets, symphonies, preludes/fugues).

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pbWparmLt6ucZ6c.html I did this short video on its second movement a few years ago!

Since each of the three major sections of the exposition section are different combinations of multiple small motifs, I hesitate to use the term "monothematic," but yes, all the sections are interrelated. To answer your second question, yes, his piano and chamber works also display this motivic ingenuity!

@@Richard.Atkinson thank you!