Brahms: The Podcast

It’s an all-Brahms program with the Harrisburg Symphony this weekend – you could call it 'Brahms Cubed' – or as Stuart Malina referred to it in our podcast chat, “Brahms, Brahms and Quasi-Brahms.” He’ll conduct the orchestra in the Symphony No. 1 in C Minor and, joined by concertmaster Odin Rathnam, celebrating his 20th season with the orchestra, the Violin Concerto in D Major.

The program opens with the world premiere of… not a newly discovered work by Brahms but a “fan-fare” composed by Brahms fan Stuart Malina, a concert-opener that is based on themes from another one of Brahms’ symphonies, the 4th, one Stuart says might be his favorite if he had to choose (the standard response, justifiably, to the question “which is your favorite Brahms Symphony?” is to say “the one I’m conducting at the moment”).

Listen to the podcast here.

And also check out the posts I’ve written about the Violin Concerto (check back later, it's still TBA at the moment), the Symphony (historical background to the question “Why did it take Brahms so long to compose his 1st Symphony?”) and a bit of a conversation Brahms had about his compositional ideas with a protégé of his during the summer he (finally) completed the Symphony No. 1.

The performances are this Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 3pm at the Forum in downtown Harrisburg – and the pre-concert talks will be given an hour before each performance by Stuart Malina (as if he didn’t have enough to deal with before a concert).

- Dick Strawser