Richibi’s Weblog

Johannes Brahms

__________

if I’ve been away from my perhaps too
abundant, Cornucopian indeed sometimes,
post of late, not as ubiquitous in your
hotmail, it’s because I’ve been following
not six but six and half courses at
Coursera, which have taken up a
considerable amount of my time, all of
them fruitful except for that half, which
apart from some smoke still from its
lingering ashes in the form of belated
comments on what were personally
pertinent fora, forums, I’ve committed to
the cellar of wasted money, despite its
being free, time itself being, according
to my father, hard currency

The Fiction of Relationship
Introduction to Philosophy
Revolutionary Ideas: An Introduction to Legal and Political Philosophy
Søren Kierkegaard – Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity
From the Repertoire: Western Music History through Performance
Philosophy and the Sciences

the half will remain unnamed for its
being, to my mind, inferior, not worth
not only recommending but even
mentioning, or, worth not only not
recommending but neither mentioning,
take your pick

but from “From the Repertoire” we were
offered this week to investigate Brahms’
Horn Trio in E-flat Major, opus 40, entirely
worth looking into, I thought I’d pass it
along

it was composed in commemoration of
Brahms’ mother who’d died not much
earlier, a cello could replace the horn,
stipulated Brahms, even a viola for
fear of later horns being too brassy,
incommensurate with the intent of the
dedication however passionate some
of its musical argumentation, much
more abstract than that of Beethoven,
you’ll note, though still nevertheless
ever melodic

he has as well a more heraldic tone,
consequently, by extension
earthbound, rather than Beethoven’s
more transcendental ruminations,
both remaining equal, however, ever,
in, in each his realm, their grandeur

Richard