Expression particulars of Brahms's music language, mirrored in hs Compositions for Piano

Shwan SEBASTIAN, Transilvania University of Braşov
2020 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Brașov. Series VIII, Performing arts  
This article refers to the main features of expression in the music language in the piano compositions of Brahms. From the broad and long works for piano from his youth, the sonatas -true "disguised symphonies", the music language of the composer evolves during his maturity towards the complexity of variations for piano and piano concertos -designed as genuine "symphonies with piano as an obligatory instrument", so that, toward the end of his life, Brahms concentrate his full mastery into
more » ... ures for piano, Opp. 116 -119, true jewels, which represent the "swan song" of the German master. The expression particulars of his music language will be analysed through highlighting the sources and style types, style parameters and musical aesthetics elements that are specific of Brahms's work. The depth of Brahms's personality and experiences are mirrored through an elaborate musical discourse, where the Romanticist composer maintains the Classicist balance, logic and a rigorous control of the composition thinking, but the Classicist matrix is subjected to workthrough and an innovating spirit, under the star of aesthetical elegance. Novel is the fact that this apparent balance in the music of Brahms conceals strong inner tension. Thus, through a poetic language, the composer succeeds in expressing the deepest mysteries of the human soul, the finest vibrations, the most untranslatable impulses. Shwan SEBASTIAN, Stela DRĂGULIN 260 emotion, since Romanticism grants the miracle the right to exist, Romanticists attempt to bewitch the world again, a world desacralised by the Enlightenment and the dogmatic rationalism of the 18 th Century (Râmbu 2001, 9). Romanticism, seen as an apparently contradicting struggle between the aspiration of the future, and also the nostalgia of the glorious past, the crushing of conventions, but also the need for order, balance, the "apparent domination of feelings over reason" (Sandu-Dediu 2013, 125), the glorification of man and the pain over a lost God, leads to the rising of the Romanticist figure in Brahms's works, with one foot in heaven and the other on earth, who is subjected to breaking or who appeals to profound reconciliation. The individual choice, the Brahms sub-style within the Romanticist style, is to use the Classicist matrix, subjected to workthrough and to an innovative spirit. The metaphor of identity in Brahms, illustrated particularly in the Rhapsodies, Monologues etc. brings to the foreground the thanatic feeling that reveals an extraordinary attitude identity, a temperamental, psychological, and affective imprint, the creator's mark. The unique behaviour facing death has an impact in creating the testament protocol. The artist fights. He wants immortality, he wants the hero's glory. He yearns for it at any price; at the price of physical death. It seems that the first katharsis of the Romanticist soul is mutiny, for he, the artist, is not understood. Hence the Language of solitude (Crișan 2016, 239). Prolonged unfulfilled expectations lead to the artist's isolation, whose only pastime is to enjoy nostalgia and melancholy in all its depths. "The eminence of the spirit leads to unsociability", Arthur Schopenhauer used to say. Stylistic sources The legacy of Beethoven, with the theme ideas, modulations, the noble and heroic tradition, the polyphonic technique, the monumental and solemn construction of the sound, all represent Brahms's heritage. There is no doubt that the titan of Classicist music was he who dominated the work and influenced the personality of Brahms. The imprint of Beethoven, from "extasy to agony", ends when the second symphony, the Brahms Pastorale, is written, when Brahms frees himself from the overwhelming pressure of the spirit of his great forerunner, moment noted in his letter to Hermann Levi: "You can't imagine what it is like to incessantly hear the Titan's steps behind you." In his turn, Brahms was an ethical and aesthetical model for Enescu, the "god of my youth adoration", as Enescu himself said. He appreciated in Brahms above all Expression particulars of Brahms's music language, mirrored in his Compositions for Piano 261
doi:10.31926/but.pa.2019.12.61.51 fatcat:74eogp67vvedbmtv3uz4cvwhea