Brahms's violin sonatas : style, structure, performance / Joel Lester.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lester, Joel, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brahms, Johannes, 1833-1897. Sonatas--violin, piano.

Brahms, Johannes.

Sonatas (Violin and piano)--Analysis, appreciation.

Sonatas (Violin and piano).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (393 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Summary:

"Brahms's Violin Sonatas: Style, Structure, and Performance is a companion volume to Joel Lester's award-winning 1999 study Bach's Works for Solo Violin: Style, Structure, and Performance. Using a minimum of technical language and with annotated musical examples illustrating almost every point, Brahms's Violin Sonatas explores three masterpieces of the concert repertoire in a book designed for performers and music scholars alike. A major focus is how much can be learned by carefully reading Brahms's artistically nuanced musical notation, and by understanding Brahms's style-especially his music's deep connections to Classical-Era harmony, phrasing, and form while at the same time using late-19th-century harmonies, dissonances, and thematic evolutions, along with the contrapuntal textures that imbues all his works with a uniquely "Brahmsian" sound. Lester also explores how these works relate to important events in Brahms's life. Practical and concrete suggestions on performance arise from many of these discussions, calling performers' and analysts' attention to both technical and interpretive matters. Lester's aim is to inspire readers to explore their own individual approaches to Brahms's music, balancing what they find in the music to how they balance today's performance and interpretive styles with the ways that Brahms himself and his contemporaries might have played and experienced his creations"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction : Brahms, musical scores, musical expression, musical meaning

A note about the organization of this book

I. Brahms's notes

It sounds like Brahms

Classicism and romanticism in Brahms's music

Looking backward and forward : the second theme of the first movement in Brahms's A-major violin sontata

Brahms's scores and performance styles

Shaping Brahmsian themes

The opening of the A-major sonata

The G-major sonata begins

An opening theme's potential : the finale of the A-major sonata

Building a texture : the opening of the D-minor sonata

Varied returns : two further instances

II. Brahms's musical narratives

First-movement sonata forms

The vivace ma non troppo of the G-major sonata

The allegro amabile of the A-major sonata

The allegro of the D-minor sonata

The middle movements

The adagio of the G-major sonata

The andante tranquillo and vivace of the A-major sonata

The adagio of the D-minor sonata

The un poco presto e con sentimento of the D-minor sonata

The finales

The allegro molto moderato of the G-major sonata

The allegretto grazioso (quasi andante) of the A-major sonata

The presto agitato of the D-minor sonata

Brahms and the violin

The early violin sonatas

The scherzo from the F-A-E sonata : a glimpse of Brahms's early violin-sonata style

The sonatensatz and the later violin sonatas.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-19-008706-4

0-19-008704-8

0-19-008705-6