Brahms, Piano Quartet, C Minor, 3rd mvt, Andante, opus 60 (animation version 2)

One of Brahms' most beautiful slow movements, for string trio with piano.

FAQ

Q: Who is playing this piece?
A: Sorry, I don't know. I licensed this recording from Keith Salmon, of Royalty Free Classical Music (dot org).

Q: Who is this Brahms person?
A: You can read about him here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahms

Q: If it's a piano quartet, why do I hear violins?
A: A piece of music for a solo instrument accompanied by a piano is most often called a sonata (violin sonata, flute sonata, etc.), but when a string trio (violin, viola, violoncello) is joined by a piano, it's called a piano quartet. A piece for four pianists is usually referred to as "eight-hand piano music." Go figure.

Q: Something sounds wrong in the second beat of the measure that starts at 5:26.
A: Yes; the violist plays a D-natural on the second beat; it should be a D-sharp.

Q: This is really beautiful; what other pieces are like this?
A: I don't know of another piece that's this beautiful in quite this way, but the other piano trios, quartets and quintets of Schubert, Schumann and Brahms are really good, so that's a good place to start.

Q: Is there a way I could make the bar-graph scores myself?
A: The Music Animation Machine MIDI file player will generate this display; you can get the (Windows) software here:
http://www.musanim.com/player/
There are lots of places on the web where you can get MIDI files; I usually go to the Classical Archives site first:
http://www.classicalarchives.com/

Q: Could you do a MAM video of _________?
A: Please read this:
http://www.musanim.com/all/MAMRequests.html

Q: Can I get a DVD with videos like this?
A: Yes:
http://www.musanim.com/mam/video.html

Q: What do the colors in the bar-graph score mean?
A: The colors indicate: violin, viola, violoncello, piano top staff, piano bottom staff.

Q: Why do the scores move at different speeds?
A: The bar-graph score is graphical, and in it, time translates exactly into horizontal position; conventional notation is symbolic, so there is usually one symbol per note, regardless of whether it's a long or a short note, and the symbols are more or less evenly spaced (for legibility); so, when the notes are faster, the notation needs to move faster to keep up.

Q: Why am I crying?
A: I don't know, but the first time I heard this piece in a concert, I cried too. I also cried the first time I read through it with string players. Something about it.
.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• classical
• Brahms
• chamber
• quartet
• piano
• strings
• beautiful

[xMissPurdyGirlx]

Playing this with two friends for a competition in February. I play the violin, and it's a lot harder than it sounds!

[smalin]

@xMissPurdyGirlx BTW, I'm working on a video of the second movement of this right now; it should be available in a few days.

[pretzelhunt]

@Smalin

Hey, after creating all these visualizations, do you once-over sheet music differently now and think of it in a way also showing how these midi patterns would look played? ..if that makes sense..

(or perhaps as a new music translation, since it's as cohesive, visually, as you care to make it to be understandable) Maybe your experience of traditional sight-reading and ear-playing eclipses the influence these most-excellent eye-candy/ear-nuggets have on training...

[smalin]

@pretzelhunt No, my sight-reading hasn't been influence by the animations; the influence goes the other way (see the history section on my website).

[honeyspur]

So beautiful.....love the animation

[theotendleeey]

just. how.

[Pluk95]

Thanks for your awesome music, smalin! It reallly helped me studying :)

[bartie55]

Subscribed. 

[tteu123]

@svenson03 Such as? Would you mind naming a few? I'm going on a Brahms hunt of beautiful music

[svenson03]

One of Brahms' most beautiful slow movements? Yes, I agree, but Brahms wrote many most beautiful slow movements.

[abedzadeh]

That´s really great recording. Also also great are the FAQ!

[d3sired]

I want to die with this piece playing.

[notaire2]

This slow movement really solace me. Thanks for the nice upload!