| Johannes Brahms, composer and pianonist of the German romanticism period, started to apprentice under Friendrichcossel to play piano. Friendrichcossel is a classicism follower musically, Brahms then followed EduardMarxsen, who adored German and Austrian classical tradition. Under the influence of the two mentors, Brahms also became a classicism adorer. Although in mid and late term of romanticism, Brahms still worshiped classicism creative methods. Being called "Romantic Classicist" he subtly blended romanticism with classicism. Brahms put together German Romanticism style, contents and classic musical form and rules and was considered Romantic Classical Musician. He opposed over focusing too much on gorgeousness in form and pursued deep and implicit emotional expression. In German musical history, Brahms has always been compared with Bach and Beethoven, being calling the three main pillars. They have also known as "3B" for the reason that their shared the same initial B. Brahms received a doctor’s degree from University of Breslau and a lot of honors in his later years. The emperor Austria and Prussia granted him numerous honors, as well as honorary citizen of Hamburg being granted to him.(only three persons held this honor for the time being). His creative works almost covered all areas in music,《Piano Fantasy》 op.79was created by Brahms in1879and published in1880, composed of two pieces, including the first rhapsody in b minor and the second rhapsody g minor.This article is divided into four chapters in exploration with the performance of 《Rhapsody》First chapter: Brahms’s biography and experience and the influence of his personality on musical creationThis chapter gives brief introduction to Brahms’s biography, achievements; analyses the influence of his experience and personality on musical creation; with the help of psychological analysis assesses the influence of Brahms’childhood experience on musical creation, the influence of his relationship with Clara on musical creation, influence of Bach, Beethoven’s influence on his musical creation, influence of his solitary and unsociable personality on musical creation. When we study the performance of a musical piece of work, we will look into the piece of work itself and the author of it, and having better understanding of the author’s personal experience, feeling and personality helps to have better understanding of the author and the characteristics of the piece of work, as a result, better performance can be carried out.Second Chapter:Analysis of the creation of 《Rhapsody》 Op.79This chapter gives brief introduction to the musical form of Rhapsody, analyzing the two pieces of works of 《Rhapsody》 Op.79, including introduction to the works, musical structure, harmony and melody features.Third Chapter: Analysis of the performance of 《Rhapsody》 Op.79This chapter mainly focuses on the skills and styles in performing this piece of work well, the unique creation of Brahms is to structure music by developing variation, therefore it is necessary to look into this part when studying on his works. The first quarter spread its analysis on developing variation of the two pieces. The second quarter focuses on dynamics and touch key. The third focuses on the use of pedal, which is an indispensable part in performing piano works, which is also known as the "soul" of piano music. The fourth quarter focuses on the performing style of this work, analyses are carried out on basis of the two characteristics of the Brahms’ works:symphonic, fusion of classicism and romanticism, on how to bring out this characteristic when performing this work. The last quarter focuses on difficulties of the performance, the analysis of the difficulties and focuses of the two pieces of works.Fourth Chapter: Appreciation of concert version of this work.The writer picked Rubinstein and Backhaus as performers. Here in this chapter we are not to compare the same and different by the two performers. Instead, by listening to the performance of masters, we are going to discover their re-creation added to the original works, to appreciate the shining point of their works and apply this to our studying and performing. |
