01	No 1 in G minor						03:28
	02	No 2 in D minor						02:49
	03	No 3 in F major						02:15
	04	No 4 in F minor	Budapest Symphony Orchestra					04:35
	05	No 5 in F sharp minor	Budapest Symphony Orchestra					02:17
	06	No 6 in D major						03:26
	07	No 7 in A major						01:50
	08	No 8 in A minor						03:01
	09	No 9 in E minor						02:10
	10	No 10 in F major						01:55
	11	No 11 in D minor						04:05
	12	No 12 in D minor						02:31
	13	No 13 in D major						01:32
	14	No 14 in D minor						02:27
	15	No 15 in B flat major						02:17
	16	No 16 in F minor						02:59
	17	No 17 in F sharp minor						03:11
	18	No 18 in D major						01:30
	19	No 19 in B minor						02:02
	20	No 20 in E minor						02:51
	21	No 21 in E minor						01:35
	22	Tragic Overture in D minor op.81	London Symphony Orchestra					14:00

Dances 4 and 5 performed by Budapest Symphony Orchestra, conductor Istvan Bogar

Tragic Overture performed by London Festival Orchestra, conductor Vladimir Petroschoff


Hungarian Dances (21) for piano, 4 hands (or piano solo or orchestra), WoO 1
Composer Johannes Brahms
Composition Date 1858 -1879

Description

Brahms completed these 21 dances for piano, four-hands, in 1869. They are divided into four books, the first two of which were completed by 1868, at which time Brahms and Clara Schumann premiered them at a private gathering, on November 1. Each contained five dances, while Books III and IV were comprised of five and six dances, respectively. These were first performed in 1880, also by the composer and Clara Schumann.
Brahms used Hungarian Gypsy folk material in these pieces, having been introduced to it around 1850 by Hungarian violinist Ede Remenyi. However, some of the themes were Brahms' own, but retained Hungarian Gypsy flavors. Joachim claimed that Nos. 11, 14, and 16 were strictly of the composer's own devising. In 1872, Brahms arranged the first ten dances for solo piano, calling them simply Ten Hungarian Dances. A year later he adapted three of the dances for orchestra, Nos. 1, 3, and 10. Other arrangers later transcribed the dances for orchestra and various ensembles, as the music grew more popular.

The First Dance, in G minor, certainly has a Gypsy flavor in its lively exoticism. But, like many, it is also Brahmsian: the composer took so well to this idiom because it was not alien to his nature, as evidenced by his G minor Piano Quartet and Violin Concerto, both of which seem to incorporate these folkish elements naturally into their fabric.

The playful No. 3, in F major, is another gem, both for its subtlety and vibrant colors. No. 5, in F sharp minor, is one of the most famous in the set, containing one of those themes that virtually every man and woman on the street has heard in one guise or other. The humor and lively style of No. 7, in A major, make it attractive, but it sounds less the product of folk influence. The ensuing dance, in A minor, sounds somewhat the product of a Lisztian treatment. Book II's closing item, No. 10 in E major, is vibrant and joyous, full of color and rhythmic appeal. No wonder Brahms was moved to orchestrate it.

Brahms felt that the latter two books were superior to the first pair. Most musicologists would probably agree. The very first item, No. 11, in A minor, has a more subtle expressive manner than most in the previous books. It is less overtly folkish, as are Nos. 12 and 14, both in D minor. On average the 11 pieces in the final two books are also shorter and less colorful, though they possess greater depth.

That said, the B flat major No. 15 returns to the style of the earlier books, showing more color and brighter moods. The rollicking F minor dance that follows is quite attractive and also sounds less Gypsy-influenced. No. 17, in F sharp minor, shows an array of colors and moods. The remaining four are fairly short, but all quite worthwhile. -- Robert Cummings





Tragic Overture, in D minor, Op. 81
Composer Johannes Brahms
Composition Date 1880 -1881

Description
Brahms composed this work on holiday during the summer of 1880, and Hans Richter led the first performance with the Vienna Philharmonic on December 26 of that year. In two different editions of Essays in Musical Analysis, Sir Donald Francis Tovey pontificated at length about the tragedy Brahms had in mind for this companion piece to the jolly Academic Festival Overture. From Ischl in the Austrian Alps the composer wrote to his publisher, "I could not refuse my melancholy nature the satisfaction of composing an overture for a tragedy." To his friend the conductor Carl Reinecke he said of the pair that "one of them weeps, the other one laughs," as with the comic and tragic masks in Greek and Roman theater.
Brahms did not, however, give any further hint of a specific "tragedy," nor had he suffered any recent private loss or given any indication of uncommon sadness. He wasn't, in truth, very fond of the title Tragic, referring to the work at one point as the "Dramatic Overture" although a canvass of his friends failed to produce an alternative that anyone liked better. Interestingly, 64 measures at the end of the exposition appeared in a sketchbook from the year 1869, which was principally concerned with the working-out of his Alto Rhapsody and Liebeslieder Waltzes. By then, inward grief over his mother's death had been sublimated in A German Requiem, and he had made the pleasant decision to live permanently in Vienna.

A melancholy streak in Brahms' personality that dated from childhood surfaced regularly in his later music, but "Melancholy Overture" wouldn't have sounded half so well as Tragic, although it more nearly fits the mood of Op. 81. In the event, this structurally traditional work (unlike the Academic Festival) opens with a pair of Beethovenian chords used thematically later on to set up the gloomy and agitated D minor main subject in 2/2 time. This is developed considerably before we hear a more lyrical second subject in F major. A third subject (the one from his 1869 sketchbook, with dotted rhythm and horn punctuation) adds a further element of contrast before the development proper begins Molto piu moderato -- much slower than the exposition tempo. This development is brief, however, after which the three subjects are recapitulated in reverse order, as Beethoven's did in the Coriolan Overture, and Wagner's in the Flying Dutchman. -- Roger Dettmer




Johannes Brahms
Country Germany
Birth May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany
Death Apr 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria
Period Romantic

Biography

The stature of Johannes Brahms among classical composers is well illustrated by his inclusion among the "Three Bs" triumvirate of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Of all the major composers of the late Romantic era, Brahms was the one most attached to the Classical ideal as manifested in the music of Haydn, Mozart, and especially Beethoven; indeed, Hans von Bulow once characterized Brahms' Symphony No. 1 (1855 - 1876) as "Beethoven's Tenth." As a youth Brahms was championed by Robert Schumann as music's greatest hope for the future; as a mature composer, Brahms became for conservative musical journalists the most potent symbol of musical tradition, a stalwart against the "degeneration" represented by the music of Wagner and his school. Brahms' symphonies, choral and vocal works, chamber music, and piano pieces are imbued with strong emotional feeling, yet take shape according to a thoroughly considered structural plan.
The son of a double bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society, Brahms demonstrated great promise from the beginning. He began his musical career as a pianist, contributing to the family coffers as a teenager by playing in restaurants, taverns, and, some biographers have intimated, establishments of far lesser respectability. Though by his early 20s he enjoyed associations with luminaries like violinists Eduard Remenyi and Joseph Joachim, the friend and mentor who was most instrumental in advancing his career was Schumann, who all but adopted him and became his most ardent partisan, and their esteem was mutual. Following Schumann's death in 1856, Brahms became the closest confidant and lifelong friend of the composer's widow, pianist and composer Clara Wieck Schumann. After a life of spectacular musical triumphs and failed loves (the composer was involved in several romantic entanglements but never wed), Brahms died of liver cancer on April 3, 1897.

In every genre in which he composed, Brahms produced works that have become staples of the repertory. His most ambitious work, the German Requiem (1863 - 1867), is the composer's singular reinterpretation of an age-old form. The four symphonies -- lushly scored, grand in scope, and deeply expressive -- are cornerstones of the symphonic literature. Brahms' concertos are, similarly, in a monumental, quasi-symphonic vein: the two piano concertos (1856 - 1859 and 1881) and the Violin Concerto (1878) call for soloists with both considerable technical skill and stamina. His chamber music is among the most sophisticated and exquisitely crafted of the Romantic era; for but a single example, his works that incorporate the clarinet (e.g. the Trio in A minor, Op. 114 and the two Sonatas, Op. 120), an instrument largely overlooked by his contemporaries, remain unsurpassed. Though the piano sonata never held for Brahms the same appeal it had for Beethoven (Brahms wrote three to Beethoven's 32), he produced a voluminous body of music for the piano. He showed a particular affinity for variations -- notably, on themes of Schumann (1854), Handel (1861), and Paganini (1862 - 1863) -- and likewise produced a passel of national dances and character pieces such as ballades, intermezzi, and rhapsodies. Collectively, these constitute one of the essential bodies of work in the realm of nineteenth century keyboard music. -- All Music Guide