Reforming Johannes

Brahms, Kreisler Junior and the Piano Trio in B, Op. 8

Bibliographic Data

ID4409135
AuthorsRoger Moseley (corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume132
Issue2
Pages252-305
Publication date2007-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the Royal Musical Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-0403 • E-ISSN: 1471-6933
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1093/jrma/fkm004
OpenAlexW2126038730
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited17

A comparison of the 1854 and 1891 versions of the Piano Trio in B, op. 8, explores how musical allusion can be interpreted to convey Johannes Brahms's attitudes to critics, friends, other composers and his own past. The young Brahms's attachment to E. T. A. Hoffmann's literary alter ego Johannes Kreisler helps explain the extent to which the music of others makes itself heard in the first version of the trio. Changing standards of criticism affected the nature and scope of Brahms's revision, which expunged perceived allusions; the older Brahms's more detached compositional approach shared elements with Heinrich Schenker's analytical perspective. There are also parallels between Brahms's excisions and the surgical innovations of his friend and musical ally Theodor Billroth. Both Brahms and Billroth were engaged with the removal of foreign bodies in order to preserve organic integrity, but traces of others - and of the past - persist throughout the revised trio

Allusion · Art · Art history · Literature · Musical · Musical expression · Order (exchange) · Parallels · Piano · Engineering · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Neuroscience and Music Perception · Theater, Performance, and Music History

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