Mike was a fellow professor at the Hellenic Naval Academy. He had enormous musical education (if I remember well, he had been a member of the BBC symphony orchestra and chorus and once he had performed under the formidable Otto Klemperer!). I thus always enjoyed discussions with him regarding our mutual love: classical music.
At some point the issue of the discussion was Brahms. And then Mike, with typical British sarcastic humor, said the following about the German composer:
“Brahms’ orchestra sounds like someone stirring a thick soup!”
As much as I adore Brahms, I cannot fully disagree with Mike's statement. Indeed, Brahms' orchestral sound sometimes gives the listener an impression of "thickness" in the flow of the music. This mainly concerns the management of the strings in their lower registers (violas, cellos, basses) where the orchestration is often particularly "dense".
This does not mean to say, of course, that the aesthetic result is unpleasant! Indeed, there are moments when the sound is truly breathtaking, such as toward the end of the slow (2nd) movement of the Second Symphony. And, by the way, let us not forget that Wagner, with a similarly masterful use of the strings in their low ranges, makes us feel as if we are swimming in the depths of the Rhine at the opening of Götterdämmerung!
So here is Brahms’ Second Symphony, a lyrical journey from melancholy to joy...
