62. A bit more autumn, romance, spring - and frenzy!

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Do you think that classical music is not for you and you don't know where to start? Or maybe you're a fan already and would welcome a fresh approach. You've come to the right place. Perfect pitch is for everyone. Beginners or experts, whatever your age. Lend Nick Healy Hutchinson your ears for his weekly dose of classical music that will enrich your life.

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Those of you who enjoyed the music of Johannes Brahms will know what I mean when I say he's a sort of composer, but seems to go well with a season of autumn. There's an undeniably autumnal feel to the mood of many of his compositions. Not, I hate to add, grey or down cast, but embracing and meditative as the days get shorter. We've listened to some of his music before, and you may remember how I mentioned that it was almost universally reviled in his life, with the notable exceptions of Robert and Clara Schumann. Tchaikovsky wrote that, he has no charm for me. I find him cold and obscure, full of pretensions, but without any real debt. And in his Brandy of the Downed of 1964, Colin Wilson observed that Benjamin Britton claimed that he plays through the whole of Brahms at intervals to see that it was really as bad as he thought, and ends up discovering that it's actually much worse. Personally, I think that's a ridiculous and thoroughly pompous observation. Brahms was unquestionably a one-off, but I remain perplexed as to why his music continues to divide opinion today. Here are two short piano pieces which cover so many of those moods. Tenderness and charm in the short waltz in A flat, followed by the tempestuous ballad in G minor, which in fact has its own little dose of tenderness in the middle. Neither of these pieces could be called cold or pretentious. The waltz is played by Mora Limpany and the Ballard by Maria Pariah. He was a proper child prodigy, entering the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten. Despite being slightly scathing about homosexuals and homosexuality, he was almost certainly one himself, and I doubt his friendship with Marcel Proust was limited to a love of literature, painting, and Gabrielle Foret. I've had a glimpse of a biography by Brian Reed, which is expected to come out later this year or early next, and I recommend it to you highly. He's most famous for his huge output of songs. So let's listen to one of them. A little boat in which the singer sends it on its way to Santa Fe. Here it is, a song by the tenor Leonardo de Lisi. I think it's rather lovely, and you may just recognize it.

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Fa presto di neta, non te mue marchetta, i freschi accia pasoni che su mausé, soiti la cura, et ciò te voy a la vita, fare. Se le che tra de lori, chi troppo indiscreto, volesse dai peto, e il feno strappare. No banaste frotore, sore e torni il sorremo, le aterre.

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We've heard some of Schumann's chamber and piano music on previous podcasts. But it was his wife Clara who observed that a lot of that was actually quite orchestral in its structure. So she was very keen for her husband to write something symphonic. It wasn't until he was over thirty in 1841 that she got her wishes. So I don't think it really matters when it's played. I know there are some who don't credit human with huge skills of orchestration. Maybe his symphonies don't have a richness or so physications on others. But you can be forgiven anything when you come up with a tune like this. Just a quick recap. With a phrase like that, you might expect the guy would turn out to be an impossibly fool of himself, but the complete opposite was happily the case. He was the first great film music composer and definitely paved the way in that genre for the likes of John Williams. We're going to listen to the third movement of his violin concert origin in 1942 in a moment. But before we do that, let's listen to just a couple of minutes of his theme from The Prince and the Pauper, a film five years previously. But it's also rather delicious. Listen out of those brass and the cutter moments and you'll see what I mean about John Williams. This could so easily come from Harry Potter over sixty years later, couldn't it? Now I think that's great. And if you don't, then this might be a good time to clock out. Because Korngold uses it as the principal theme for the third movement of his violin concerto. This is blisteringly difficult, but it's also riveting. It's modern and edgy, and it's also a brilliant example of how a very clear melody can survive awkward and at times almost offensive harmonies. And if you didn't know it's by Kornhold, I think you might easily have thought it was by John Williams, because it's familiar sounding and so up to date. It's played here by Itzak Perman with a Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andre Previn.

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