Remixed: Brahms-Wagner-Debussy

SOUND METAMORPHOSES

Works by important composers have survived in different versions. The changes range from minor retouching of the instrumentation to complete cast changes to a kind of new composition. Sometimes the authors carried out these adaptations themselves and published several versions of a work, sometimes contemporaries or later generations took on these compositions in order to adapt them to changed listening, changed aesthetics or new technical possibilities. But the arrangers were always concerned not to touch the musical content of the original work. In the best case, these sound metamorphoses were able to produce a change of perspective that allowed the respective composition to appear in a new, unexpected light.

Johannes Brahms has published numerous of his orchestral works in authorized versions for piano, such as his Haydn Variations or the famous ones Hungarian dances. He found it harder with his Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, which he initially conceived as a string quintet in 1863. When he sent the work to his friend violinist Joseph Joachim for assessment, he reacted rather negatively: “I don’t want to produce the quintet as it is in public – but only because I hope you change a few things here and there that are too abrupt for me and lighten the coloring here and there.« Brahms, by no means resistant to advice, then worked the work into one Sonata for two pianos which he performed in Vienna in 1864 with Carl Tausig and later also with Clara Schumann.

Now it was the Schumann widow, also a close friend of Brahms, who spoke of the "feeling of an arranged work" and was of the opinion that an entire orchestra was needed to bring the work to bear. Here, too, Brahms took the advice and created a new version for piano quintet. But the version for two pianos was apparently so important to him that he published it separately as Opus 34b. Whichever of these arrangements is preferred – Brahms apparently destroyed the original version for string quintet – it is one of his most profound chamber works, and each of these arrangements has its own tonal qualities.

As is so often the case with this composer, the final movement forms the real center of the work. The slow introduction with its excessive chromaticism touches on the musical world of Richard Wagner Tristan- Prelude, the main theme that follows is probably not accidentally reminiscent of the finale from Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet op. 44, which Brahms valued greatly. The formally highly complex final movement is preceded by a sonata movement in which Brahms develops three contrasting groups of themes from a four-bar motto. What follows is an intermezzo-like Andante and a scherzo of astounding motor activity, which thematically clearly ties in with the first movement.

Today it is hard to imagine the enormous influence Richard Wagner's work had on the subsequent generation of artists. This was by no means limited to music; his music dramas also left deep traces in literature and the fine arts. Max Reger was one of the greatest Wagner enthusiasts. He confessed throughout his life that he owed his decision to pursue a musical career above all to the influence of Wagner: »When I heard Parsifal for the first time as a 15-year-old boy in Bayreuth, I cried for a fortnight, and then I became a musician. «

This awakening experience had a decisive influence on Reger until his early death in 1916. It was his ultimate goal to surpass Wagner, albeit with completely different musical means. In earlier years had he only heard Elisabeth's prayer from the Tannhäuser arranged for harmonium, in August 1912 he turned to the preludes to Wagner's most important musico-dramatic works, which he arranged for two pianos and thus opened up a new perspective on these key pieces by the composer.

To  Meistersinger-Foreplay and Tannhäuser-overture followed in 1914 with the prelude and the love death Tristan und Isolde as well as Wotan's farewell and the fire magic from the Valkyrie probably Reger's most important transcriptions for two pianos. Was it Wagner in the harmonically ambivalent, completely chromatic prelude to Tristan according to his own words, it was primarily about musicalizing a theme in a »long structured course« that was supposed to represent »longing, insatiable, ever new birthing desire, thirst and languishing«, this is indeed the case in Reger’s new interpretation of the timbre reduced to the piano - but the harmonic boldness of this score, its density, its internal dramaturgy emerge all the more sharply in his version.

Arranging works by other composers or by himself for the piano was a passion of Maurice Ravel. His first surviving score, La Jeunesse d'Hercule, is the piano version of a work by Camille Saint-Saëns. In later years he also made transcriptions for piano, such as his ballet Daphnis and Chloé or the famous Boléro. The transitions between piano and orchestral writing are often fluid in Ravel's work, and the composer was particularly pleased with this fact.

Ravel also arranged some of Claude Debussy's orchestral works for piano. In addition to the famous Prelude to the afternoon of a fauna it is mainly the cycle of Night, which shows Ravel's art of transcription at its peak. The work on the Night occupied Debussy for many years. For him, this group of works was closely connected with the achievement of certain color values ​​and nuances from the very beginning. In a letter dated September 22, 1894, he explained the triptych's concept to the work's dedicatee, the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe: "Basically, it is an exploration of the different compositions possible with a single color, comparable to a study in gray in the painting."

Debussy was probably thinking of the pictures by the American painter James Whistler, which he had met in the Paris salons. This also included a series with musical titles such as Symphony or  Nocturne in Blue and Silver – Pictures that are primarily designed as studies in specific color tones. If Debussy had initially envisaged a solo violin and orchestra, in the final version he used a women's choir instead of the violin in the last piece of the cycle, Sirens. However, the human voice is not used here as a traditional vocal part - there are no lyrics - but serves as additional instrumental colour.

In the text for the premiere, which most likely comes from Debussy himself, he characterized the three movements of the Night like this: »Nuages, the unchanging aspect of the sky with the slow and melancholy drifting of the clouds, ending in a gray dying, softly tinged with white. Fêtes, the movement, the dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with the flash of sudden light; there is also the episode of a parade - dazzling, chimerical vision - moving across and merging with the festival. But the background remains, asserts itself - always the festival and its mixture of music, of glittering dust in an all-encompassing rhythm. Sirènes: the sea and its unpredictable rhythm; then, beneath the silvered waves of the moon, the mysterious song of the sirens is heard laughing and passing.”

The premiere of Night in October 1901 was not a hit with the public. Even Debussy himself was evidently not satisfied with the tonal transformations he had attempted here. In any case, he revised the orchestration several times after the premiere.

Martin Demmler

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Sonata for two pianos in F minor, Op. 34b (1864) 38: 39
to the Quintet Op. 34

[01] Not too cheerful 11:17
[02] Andante, a little Adagio 09:27
[03] Scherzo. allegro 07:22
[04] Final. Poco sostenuto - Allegro non troppo 10:33

Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Prelude and Isolde's Liebestod from "Tristan and Isolde" 15:16
Transcription for two pianos by Max Reger (1873–1916)

[05] Foreplay. Slowly and languidly 07:33
[06] Isolde's love death 07:43

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Three Nocturnes 23:17
Transcription for two pianos by Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)

[07] I.Nuages. Modere 06:14
[08] II. Fêtes. Anime et très rythmé 06:09
[09] III. Sirenes. Moderation et anime 10:54

Total playing time: 77:24

GrauSchumacher Piano Duo
Andreas Grau Goetz Schumacher