Incredible analysis. This channel is an absolute gem.

Greatest cheers for "whatever this would be" chord around 22:22 :D

Beautiful video

Thank you so much for this. It's so useful for teaching!!

I must say, this passage was always my favourite from the whole movement. That's a good reason why!

I was just wondering why does the off beat version of the blue subject (5:47), is written as tow linked eight notes and not a simple quarter note ?

Don’t you believe that the very climax of the closing theme at 16:13 features a breakthrough of the grey theme in the first violins? It isn’t highlighted in the video, but I think that this theme is a directly derived and expanded version of the grey figure COMBINED with the main orange theme : the melodic pattern is certainly of the grey theme, and the rhythm, this relentless, stubborn, painful and determined drive, it is the main orange theme, and, when both of them are combined, they explode in intensity, triggered by the figure of the closing theme! Since both the grey and the orange themes are present everywhere throughout the movement, it seems almost obvious to me that it should be this same idea which is expressed at the greatest peak of intensity so far in the symphony. If Brahms allows himself to be expressive, it means that he has convinced himself that this expression is clever and perfect enough to be the carrier of his intense feelings.

How about if you read the translations in a respectful manner. It sound like a mocking tone.

gorgeous

The second theme in the first movement simply defies words. Soaringly beautiful yet profoundly simple, It seems to be expressing something life-affirming and eternal. How it could have been composed by a 31-year-old man months away from death is something I will never understand.

is it really a jumpscare if there's a crescendo into it?

Thank you this a lucid and logical analysis of this magnificent movement. Here is Mozart displaying his contrapuntal genius but using fugal ingenuity as the servant of emotional intensity. Beethoven came close to this in his "grosse Fuge" but Mozart outflanked him. This marriage of classical orthodoxy and romantic expression is a heady mixture, parallelled convincingly in Brahms' music.

More videos please.

I gain great enjoyment and knowledge from your well thought out and well prepared presentations. Would you accept a guest column, subject to your critique, of course? I have some very definite ideas about the double fugal nature of Beethoven's Heiliger Dankgesang from his String Quartet in a minor, op 132. I also have an idea of why he says it is in the Lydian mode.

I was analysing this passage today and just being amazed by the sound of the full woodwind consort. Wow. It’s so satisfying to listen to when they all arrive at that d major chord from all directions

Richard doing Richard ... what could possibly be a better match!

Superb analysis! Simply brillinat!

This was spectacular, but the narration was like listening to someone explaining algebra.

4:20 I'm not so sure, but the chord after iidim6, I think it is i64; not V64.

The true best Bach fugue, highly underrated

Excellent video series. My favourite 'big drum' moments would have to be : 1. Verdi's Requiem's Dies Irae - possibly the second-best-known drums after Also Sprach; 2. Tanz from Carmina Burana - who could ever imagine a flute / timpani duet ? 3. Uranus, the Magician from Holst's Planets - the timpanists have to be rock stars here; and 4. Bacchanale from Saint-Saens' Samson & Delilah, near the end when the timps and basses introduce the final section.

hot tip: intentionally writing a dumb and simplistic theme and melody prevents you from committing hideous mistakes lest you be subject to shitposts from mozart

I want it for my funeral 5:02

Splendid analysis, Richard. But don't you think the irregular rhythm at the beginning was 'inspired' (just inverting triplets and duplets) by the rhythm of the Adagio of Bruckner's 8th symphony? Bruckner had completed the first version of the Eighth in 1887, two years before Strauss, although the symphony was first performed only in 1892. It is likely that Strauss knew the score through Hermann Levi, his orchestration teacher and one of Bruckner's closest collaborators, who had triumphantly performed his Seventh Symphony in Munich. What makes this 'coincidence' even more mysterious is that Bruckner himself described in a letter the end of the first movement of the Eighth - the climactic moment, when the whole orchestra held a fortissimo chord and the trumpets and horns play a rhythm that somehow preludes the adagio - as the "Annunciation of Death", before the final hour ("Tötenuhr"). The image that he had in his head, he wrote in this letter, was «a man dying in a room, but the clock ticks on when his life has passed away». Almost the exact description that Ritter and Strauss give of the first movement of Death and Transfiguration. Fascinating theft.

I remember seeing this video a few years ago by accident and only rediscovered this excellent and very informative channel just now, but I think something's still off about this particular video. The bassoon was a solo instrument with a high pedigree since the baroque era and many concertos were written for it by Haydn's contemporaries. It seems to me like there's something retrospective going on where our perception is influenced by how bassoons have been treated by later composers (see "senile mockery" comment in Rimsky-Korsakov's treatise...) and used in cartoon soundtracks. I'm glad a lot of bassoonists in the comments don't mind (I'm not a bassoonist myself) but I can't help but feel it's missing the point of these perfectly fine passages somewhat if you pee yourself with laughter whenever you hear a bassoon solo. Granted, the "fart" passage is probably tongue-in-cheek, but I think it being specifically a "fart" is also revisionism. It's contrasting the highest woodwinds with the lowest woodwinds - which, yes, happen to have powerful bottom notes. But also remember that the bassoon's in Haydn's time and setting probably sounded quite different from the boomy German romantic bassoons that are standard today. That aside, I'd like to recommend Vanhal's concerto for two bassoons - no joke! ;)

Down vote for cutting early arhhhhh

THE BEST CHANNEL IN THE ENTIRE TUBE

Transcribed every note onto my Musicwrite Maestro in 2004. I don't remember any stand-out counterpoint. But then again, I never stopped to analyze it. Wagner was very cacophonous.

Looking at it it is obvious that Bach had to construct the subjects by using some sort of Taneyev styled planning. The use of invertible counterpoint is astounding. If both theories could be combined(Taneyev strict style, and figured bass), most of Bach's repertoire could be explained and deconstructed.

Love your videos! I am a 19 yr old conservatory violinist and have learned so many details about pieces I already knew and loved from your channel. Several in the Brahms symphonies which I may have never discovered in my life. Learned of some new works as well. Shostakovich did love to use augmentation a lot during fugues or fugue sections. I love the fugue in the second movement of his 11th symphony where there is also very complex augmentation paired with chromatic scales in the low brass. Of course that is followed by what is in my opinion, one of the most epic percussion moments in orchestral music. One of the last contrapuntal geniuses! I love Shostakovich. I hope to have your keen sense of analysis one day!

That first movement is brutal - it takes no prisoners. You can see why the symphony has no minuet; that would calm things too much.

Richard Good afternoon, the arrangement is amazing, can I borrow some notes from you? We in Russia, beyond the Arctic circle, would love to perform your work, thank you!

I like your comment: "Forgive me if I sound like an excited child, although with my monotonous voice it might not be as apparent as I think". 😀 ❤

I showed the Fuge to my father, with a masters in musicology. After the first intense fugue, he told me to "stop, stop, I can't understand it!"

I believe that this piece contains a secret code that will be discovered in the future. This secret code, when discovered with the help of artificial intelligence, will be the talk of the world. Thank you for this wonderful video, and I say to those who wrote that the composition seems weak that it takes you a long time to realize how wonderful it is, as well as how difficult it is to write such a piece. As a musician, I say that it is impossible to compose such a work that includes so many fluctuations in emotions.

Still waiting on that Beethoven Missa Solemnis video~

You missed the second, more subtle Neapolitan chord in the orchestral section of Concerto No 23 at 9:34 (two bars before the Solo section). Being part of the Ib-iv-N-ivc-Vb progression, this instance of the Neapolitan chord is resolved in a different way than the 2-bar arpeggio in the piano solo section.

4:19 Where did you get that I ❤Nielsen pin?

This is a beautifully clear analysis of this movement. What impresses here is the totally logical and economic structure: not a note to many or too. It's not surprising that I find myself comparing this with Bach's command of counterpoint. More miraculous still in this quartet movement is it's avoidance of a learned Gradus ad Parnassum pedantry. Total genius. Once again, many thanks for your superbly clear guide through the movement.

Like what the Ayatollah Khomeini said about Islam, there is no humor in Music, there are no jokes in Music. It’s too abstract for that. Are there jokes in Mathematics?

I'm a bass, and I can tell you it's very satisfying to sing his Requiem.

Wonderful analysis. But an even more direct source of the first theme is found in the middle of the slow movement of the Beethoven opus 106 sonata-- a piece marked structurally by downward thirds-- where it appears essentially verbatim.

5:36 Hot take: First Violin is trying to show off by playing really high during the cadenza, but he can't find the notes because the stops are too close. So he gets whole tones. His expedition ends with the string breaking.

What is life? It’s some of these gems. Thanks you again❤

Piano and timpani at the finale of Beethoven's 5th piano concerto. Exhilarating and delightful presentation. Thank you.

Awesome analysis of my favourite piece of music!

Please do the brahms requiem as well ✨️

There is no humor in abstract music. Music is never funny.

Amazing what comes out of the human mind, I wonder if AI has tried to break down & understand what is being communicated?

The transition between var.15 and var.16 is rather similar to what happens in the Goldberg Variations. At the very end of Bach's var.15 in g minor, he leaves a pianissimo open fifth lingering in the air, creating uncertainty about the tonality, and then modulates by responding it with a definite answer by the resolute forte G major chord at the beginning of var.16 (Bach did not indicate the dynamics, but most pianists realise the contrast in this way). Brahms essentially does the same: leaving a pianissimo chord, uncertain in tonality, with a fermata, and modulating by giving a response in another key. The similarity is supported by the fact that both transitions occur between var.15 and var.16, the middle point of both pieces, and that both usher in the second half with a re-entering effect: Bach's var.16 is an overture, which is strange in the middle of a suite and only makes sense when considered as an (re-)opening, as a prelude at the beginning of a concert's second half. Likewise, Brahms' var.16 is also a recapitulation of the theme.