The sign < >, as used by Brahms, often occurs when he wishes to express great sincerity and warmth, applied not only to tone but to rhythm also. He would linger not on one note alone, but on a whole idea, as if unable to tear himself away from its beauty. He would prefer to lengthen a bar or a phrase rather than spoil it by making up the time into a metronomic bar.
- Fanny Davies (1861-1934)
Today, the hairpin sign < > in nineteenth-century music is generally interpreted as an indicator of dynamic nuance of some sort. Yet the explanation of English pianist Fanny Davies - a student of Clara Schumann and Brahms who ear-witnessed many chamber music rehearsals and performances of Brahms and his circle - makes it abundantly clear that the hairpin sign, at least in Brahms's case, signaled an expressive temporal modification. Recent research has clearly exposed the evolving meaning of musical signs and symbols that have remained in use over an extended period of time to the present. It is clear that many of these notational devices carried meanings that they no longer do. This, of course, has very important implications for the stylish interpretation of pre-modern music.
Brahms's music is often criticised as being heavy, rigid, thickly textured and unrelenting. However, such an impression may be in part (or even greatly) due to a modern style in which musicians interpret his musical notation largely at face value, producing a result that is lacking in the expressive palette of sounds, colours, musical punctuation and flexibility that he considered indispensable for his music. Amongst these omissions is the type of flexibility of rhythm and tempo that were undoubtedly a feature of Brahms's performance style. Indeed Davies makes this clear noting that Brahms's 'manner of interpretation was free, very elastic and expansive' while the balance was always retained; 'one felt the fundamental rhythms underlying the surface rhythms.' According to Davies this elasticity was used to highlight the phrasing particularly in lyrical passages in which 'a strictly metronomic Brahms is as unthinkable as a fussy or hurried Brahms in passages which must be presented with adamantine rhythm.' Referring specifically to the third movement of Brahms's Piano Trio Op. 101, which she heard Brahms rehearse, Davies explains that he 'would lengthen infinitesimally a whole bar, or even a whole phrase, rather than spoil its quietude by making it up into a strictly metronomic bar.' Such elasticity she regarded as a chief characteristic of Brahms's manner of interpretation.
In a recent article published in 19th-Century Music entitled 'The Brahmsian Hairpin,' author David Hyun-Su Kim carefully categorises Brahms's use of hairpins (<, >, < >), comparing his notation with early sound recordings of pianists and other musicians whose playing - due to their close connection with Brahms - may be considered as preserving many aspects of his style. Kim concludes that Brahms used hairpins most often to indicate a temporal change such as an agogic accent or a larger scale broadening of tempo. Such a change could also be enhanced (both temporally and sonically) by the use of instrument-specific expressive techniques that were lauded by proponents of the nineteenth-century German School. In string playing these include frequent use of portamento (audible sliding between notes) and judicious or ornamental use of vibrato characterised by a much narrower amplitude and faster oscillation than nowadays. In piano playing these include manual asynchrony (dislocation or separation of melody note from accompaniment), and unnotated chordal arpeggiation (spreading of notes in chords). Frequent dynamic variation, accentuation, rhythmic alteration and a degree of tempo modification that is today generally frowned upon were also intrinsic expressive devices characteristic of this school. In approaching the performance of Brahms's music the great challenge is to decipher what the notation meant, what is missing, and what expression is musically and stylistically appropriate. The evidence is fairly conclusive and provides a useful set of parameters with which to approach Brahms's notation afresh.
Ironwood's seminar/performance during the 2013 Music Viva Chamber Music Festival focuses on one of Brahms's most revered chamber works, his Piano Quartet Op. 25. By applying the aforementioned performing practices of Brahms's era - discussed in pedagogical works and embodied for example in the playing of the violinist Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), the pianist Carl Reinecke (1824-1910) and even Brahms himself captured on early sound recordings - to the Op. 25 Piano Quartet, Ironwood presents a new interpretation of this most hallowed of chamber works. And to help transport the audience back into Brahms's sound world Ironwood uses gut strung string instruments and a fully restored 1869 Erard straight-strung grand piano.
F. Davies, 'Some Personal Recollections of Brahms as Pianist and Interpreter,' Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, compiled and ed. Walter W. Cobbett, with supplementary material ed. Colin Mason, 3 vols., 2nd edn. (London: Oxford University Press 1963).
C. Brown, Classical and Romantic Performing Practice 1750-1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999;
N. Peres Da Costa, Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Neal Peres Da Costa spoke to Christopher Lawrence on Music Makers in 2012.