Brahms’ longest work of chamber music is, like many of his works, a work of true harmonic mastership. Somehow listening to Brahms is for me an easy experience. The melodies revolve around a pitch that seem to fall in the range of human voice. In the game of call and answer that I wrote about earlier the melody comfortably answers quickly. This is music that gets you at ease.
And therein lies the issue. As beautiful as it is, it also never really hurts. There are no sharp edges here, no moments of torment. As you might have guessed after reading most of my articles, I just love the minor keys, I love pain in music. Brahms can be very beautiful, but after too much of it, I’m starting to get anxious.
This is the middle of his three piano quartets, first performed in 1861. This performance is good, but somehow never made it to streaming. The (members of the) Borodin Quartet did this quartet three times, with different pianists. Only one of these can be found on Spotify.