Aaron Rabushka wrote:

>Stirling wrote:
>
>>It should also be pointed out that Brahms' compositional methods are closer
>>to Mozart than Beethoven...
>
>This is not usually what one hears.

It is not usually what is played.  Which is the fault of conductors who
make Brahms too heavy, a kind of fat Beethoven of the late 19th century.

The most importnat places where Brahms is Mozartean rather than
Beethovenian are in the nature of how he cosntructs music, and in
the use of past materials.

In the first case - both Mozart and Brahms share a particular working
method - creation of the top and botton voices first, and filling in the
inner voices later, the only excetpions being at critical turns in the
music.  This produces a particular kind of relationship between them, the
base becomes a kind of "bass melody", with rhythmic liveliness.  Compare
this with Beethoven and Wagner who both use a "top line and chords" method
of composeing.  The bass line is not expected to be continually melodic in
its interest.  Though with Beethoven, a pianist, the bass line is always
animated to a degree that one does not find in Wagner.

The second is in the use of fugal procedures of a very old fashion kind
- derrived from modal techniques - as a means of creating the harmonic
texture.  Both composers adored executing very polished voice leading
through unexpected chords.  For both Beethoven and Wagner, the most distant
chord would be an occasion for interutption and reorganisation.

Brahms wrote for an intentionally archaic orchestra.  Many people do not
appreciate this:  he did not hear such orchestra's regularly during his
later years, and often notes the use of horns which had been out of use of
decades by the time of his scores.  Brahms is, like so many others of that
time, finding his identity in being an archaicism - a ruin if you will.  "A
Ruin is a monument facing backward".  In stretching to make this identity
work - he often procedes to engage in some of the most far flung synthesis
of techniques.

This too is often missed.

Stirling S Newberry
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