Piano Concertos: Why is Brahms 2 considered more mature than Rachmaninoff 3?

Question

These two titanic concertos are two of the most difficult often played concertos in piano literature, so they are talked about a lot. In most discussions, forums, or interviews with pianists I've seen, many pianists really love both.

In Alexis Weissenberg's commentary on the Rach 3, he writes "the Rachmaninoff Third has kept, and will keep forever and without the slightest doubt, a place apart in my heart. I still think it is the most gloriously written concerto for the piano." Most everybody calls it the hardest concerto that is performed often (perhaps due to the movie Shine), and a ton of people love, admire and respect (and fear) it.

Almost everything I've read about the Brahms 2 describes it as a very mature and grand work, requiring only the best and most mature musical interpretations. On the other hand, I've never seen the Rach 3 described as mature; glorious, saccharine, passionate, beautiful yes, but never mature. A lot of pianists seem to enjoy performing Rach's works, but they too will say that it's just "excessive climaxes" or “sugary drivel” or something like that. Furthermore, people will never attribute “musical depth” to Rachmaninoff, but I’ve seen it a couple times in reviews of composers ranging from Brahms to Scriabin.

Why, in these two very technically difficult, powerful, popular, romantic, and dare I say similar works, is there such a seemingly unanimous opinion people think that Brahms's concerto is mature and musical while Rachmaninoff's is less mature, "frivolous", “schmaltzy”, or "film score - esque"? Given that this opinion is so prevalent, is there something inherent about maturity in music that is objective and not subjective? Should maturity be something that music should strive for?

I’m intrigued by one of the ideas below that Brahms’s stature as a composer is due not only to his music but also and maybe even more importantly his critics. If it is so that critics are so powerful and can sway opinions (“incorrectly” or “correctly”) centuries after their deaths, isn’t that super detrimental to excellent but unlucky composers?

(This question isn’t limited to these two composers; late Beethoven is almost always described as extremely profound or transcendental, but rarely (if ever) Rachmaninoff or Liszt)

~~ I know this is a subjective question, but I hope that I've asked it well enough that it is a more constructive subjective question, which is allowed by site rules.

Answer 1

Calling the Brahms Second "mature", or the Rachmaninoff Third "film score - esque" is of course subjective. These old chestnuts can often be traced back to prominent critics whose work has simply been echoed by later generations. It is after all much easier to copy an authority's opinion than to form one's own.

You can check the old Grove's Dictionary entry for Rachmaninoff for an example of the conceited view of his music once prevalent. It was considered more tasteful to suggest an effect than to execute it outright. Rachmaninoff wore his heart on his sleeve and his music didn't please those for whom great restraint was a virtue. Deriding his music through comparison to film scores is ridiculous because it was he who influenced the film score composers.

I have a perspective on the Brahms Second as I studied it for a competition as a piano student. I will comment on it as a partial answer. I have read through but not studied the Rachmaninoff Third so have no perspective on it other than the opinion that it is much more difficult than the Brahms Second technically. Horowitz in his interview book with David Dubal even said that "the Brahms Second is not difficult at all", but let's not take him as the normal case!

The technical difficulties of the Brahms Second are generally unrewarding to the player in terms of effect. Subjectively, glittering virtuosity from the pianist-composers like Rachmaninoff and Liszt sounds good to the player, feels good to play, and on a superficial level impresses the audience. Much of the difficulty in the Brahms Second occurs in mere accompaniments, in passages which are far more difficult to play than they sound, and in arguably unpianistic writing in which ugliness or roughness of tone is very difficult to avoid. There is no easy success awaiting someone who studies this concerto. This suggests one motivation for calling it "mature".

The integration of piano and orchestra in the Brahms Second is at a high level. I can't find the reference just now, but I believe the Brahms concertos were derided by the opposing Liszt/Wagner faction as chamber music on a large scale. This judgement has been repeated many times since, but came to be seen as a virtue. Before studying this concerto, I had played his A major and C minor trios. The concerto felt like a continuation of the same kind of work. As I hinted above, much of the work in this concerto is spent in unforgiving accompaniment. Superficially, the chamber music players willingly submitting to the common cause might appear more "mature" than the flashy soloists insisting on their own part's prominence.

The conception of the Brahms Second is that of an older person, in my opinion. Over and above the general eschewal of obvious virtuosity, consider the crucial role of the last movement. How does it relate to the rest of the concerto? There is this comment by Tovey in one of his essays:

What tremendous triumph shall it express? Brahms's answer is such as only the greatest of artists can find; there are no adequate words for it (there never are for any art that is not itself words - and then there are only its own words). But it is, perhaps, not misleading to say here, as so often of Beethoven's finales, something like this: 'We have done our work - let the children play in the world which our work has made safer and happier for them.'

The music of a "mature" person, then. Tovey was a very influential critic in his time. These views spread easily.

I've suggested reasons from the points of view of restraint, pianism, composition, and conception for why this "mature" label might have come about.

Answer 2

Thanks for an interesting question.

The music of Beethoven and Brahms are described as much by their biographies as by the music itself. I think of Brahms 2 as valedictory, especially when one compares it to the torturous path followed by his first piano concerto. It is definitely a mature work but I think the context it fits into in Brahm's life and work makes mature just that much more apt a description. The words triumphant or mature just naturally seem to lend themselves to Brahms the person as much as to any of his creations.

Beethoven is an almost mythological personage with an epic backstory. The late string quartets are so unusual that the usual adjectives don't really apply; combine this with the totally soundless environment of their creator and you get adjectives like otherworldly.

Rachmaninoff, on the other hand, doesn't have nearly this much emotion wrapped up in his biography. The fact that he created a lot of his finest works for his own concerts can, under a certain light, come off as rather businesslike. I don't think his works have the depth of emotion to begin with and combine that with a lack of backstory drama, he suffers by comparison with a Brahms or a Beethoven. Its almost like he was there to sell concert tickets and the more bang and wow and flash the better his returns, bang/wow/flash not being totally consistent with beauty and artfulness. I don't know enough about Rachmaninoff's bio or his music but I'd guess that his work wasn't of such depth that you can say it matured as he went along.

You mention Liszt and that's an odd one. His best works are as full of beauty and emotion as anything in, say, Chopin. But whereas nearly everything of Chopin's rather smallish output is a gem, Liszt suffers because of the substantial volume of works he produced. Many of his works, like Rachmaninoff's, were simply commercial ventures designed to wow his recital audiences. And Liszt himself, at least in the popular mind, was a successful and somewhat spoiled artist-ocrat, something that no doubt enters into his image today. And as far as maturing, Liszt's later piano work was almost experimental and not well understood.