As Service explains, they fell in love, but Brahms cruelly rejected her, deciding instead to dedicate his life to music. There was, however, another woman in Brahms's life, Agathe von Siebold, whom he met when he was 25. The love of Brahms's life was pianist and composer Clara Schumann (wife of Robert, who died aged 46), but it's thought that their relationship never went beyond a close friendship. He does so by examining three different pieces by Brahms, the second of which - his Sextet No. And so, in the above episode of Radio 3's The Listening Service, presenter Tom Service tries to get to grips with his complex personality - to get under his skin, and behind his beard. Who was Johannes Brahms? We know for sure that he was a German composer and pianist of the Romantic period everything else beyond that is up for debate.
That's how the beginning part came about." On the way back, we'd tuned in the identifier for Toronto airport on the radio. In a documentary, he said: "We were coming back from the studio when we were making the record - just for a break - and my flight instructor came and picked us up in a small plane. Guitarist Alex Lifeson (left in the above photo) was training to become a pilot while Rush were recording Moving Pictures.
Listen to the introduction in the above snippet: it's Morse code (.
The track is named for Toronto, and Toronto is also embedded into the track. However, if you've ever flown into Rush's home city of Toronto you might know that YYZ is the IATA airport identification code of Toronto Pearson International Airport. How do you title an instrumental piece of music? Do you aim for a word or phrase that somehow sums up the feeling of the music, or do you use something completely random? Seemingly, Canadian rock power trio Rush opted for the random option when they came up with the name YYZ for an instrumental they'd written for 1981 album Moving Pictures. There are no simple answers it allows us to make of it what we will, and Shostakovich fully exploits that ambiguity in his work." Suzy: "This is his way of saying, 'I am putting myself right into the fabric of this music and, whatever you take it to mean, you cannot obliterate me.'" That's a very powerful statement, but as Suzy adds: "Music isn't that simple. Shostakovich, who was born in 1906 and died in 1975, was composing at a time of great turmoil in his country's history and was often persecuted by the Soviet authorities. Shostakovich used the motif in some of his most-famous works, but why? Aside from it being a fun idea, Suzy suggests there's a deeper reason.
In the above clip, which is taken from BBC Four's fascinating three-part series Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein, Suzy reveals how the Russian composer used four notes to spell out the first initial of his given name and the first three initials of his surname, as it is in German transliteration, Schostakowitsch (in Russian it's Шостако́вич). Be warned: explaining some of these codes and ciphers can get complex, so it's a good job we've got Suzy Klein on hand to demonstrate on a piano how Shostakovich's DSCH motif works.