Chamber Orchestra of Europe | Bernard Haitink
Thu, 25 August 2011 | 19.30 | KKL Luzern, Concert Hall
Bernard Haitink conducts the Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Chamber Orchestra of Europe | Bernard Haitink conductor
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Tragic Overture Op. 81
Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, Op. 56a
Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98
Johannes Brahms had an ambivalent relationship with his own era: “No other age at all has so mistreated art as badly we do our beloved music. I can only hope that something better is being produced in secret; otherwise our age will be considered a dunghill in the history of art,” wrote the composer in October 1859. He had put together a collection of “sayings from poets, philosophers, and artists” in which he also included an observation by Johann Peter Eckermann: “Form is something created through a thousand years of effort by the most outstanding masters, and no latecomer can ever be too eager to appropriate it.” Brahms followed this advice and took up studies in counterpoint, along with exercises imitating the different styles of music history. These efforts later bore fruit in his mastery of the art of variation, as heard in the great Passacaglia movement of the Fourth Symphony. An advance or a step backward? For Brahms, who was concerned with creating “enduring music,” such a question was pointless.
