I do hope to do my ( annual ) radiophonic analysis of a Great Musical Work for the North German Radio , NDR, in Hamburg before Christmas 2012.
It´ll be Brahms Second Symphony . Why will I take that work ?
Well ..
1. I have already covered ( how do you ” cover” a Brahms Symphony is a good question to be asked here ) his Symphonies 1,3 and 4. ” Radiophonic” in the best sense of teasing out for you, dear attentive listener, the HEARD unity of motivs, themes, ecstatic sections, sighs and movements. A great composer composes a unity , his heard symphonic unity. We can hear this composed, welded unity , learn to think with listening ears )
2. There´s a plethora of Wagner works and concerts and portraits and celebrations coming up fast in 2013, I am told. A Brahms Second Symphony is a stalwart antidote, anti-snakebite serum, healthy beliefe in musical discourse in itself and in its intramusical ( no, not extramusical ) valency. No bad thing in this age of bits and bites and bytes and fads and composers´fashions and Gesamtkunst stuff.
Brahms believed in tones, their logical handling , yet also their inner, let´s risk ” Pythagorean” valencies. Tones have magic, even without great props and Bayreuth lasers or crafty, synaesthetic stage-craft. They matter. They reach under the skin of the thinking, listening, dreaming ear.