Something for Thursday

Yes, I’ll still be doing my Thursday offerings, even as I do the Daily Dose of Christmas. Here is Herbert von Karajan conducting the last movement of Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 in D.

This is one of the most spirited movements of symphonic music I know, with a wonderful second subject (starting at the 1:25 mark) that comes back later in full flower. I love the mysterious-sounding section in the middle of the movement (roughly around the 4:30 mark) and the way that section just quietly and logically leads right back into a recapitulation of the spirited manner in which the movement started. (Pay attention to 4:51 to 5:12.) And finally, that wonderful, wonderful coda, with the final build starting at 7:52, those descending scales in the brass starting at 8:17, and the way it all ends up in the trumpets at 8:33 — how I wished, in my trumpet playing days, to get to do this symphony!

Oh well. I can still listen to it, at least.

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