| We just finished a project for The Templin Marr Group, scoring a series of instructional videos on investment strategies for single women. This part of the "confidence offensive" that a lot of firms are undertaking at this time.
The theme was: GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUNDS-- but securing the rights to the original song was too expensive so we set our own parody lyric to a tune from Brahms's 3rd Symphony, a composition in the public domain.
Brahms's 3rd rarely, if ever, springs to mind as one of the "greatest" symphonies of all-time, not in the way Sibelius's 2nd or Beethoven's 9th might. But did Brahms ever write a more thrilling theme than the one which leaps from the orchestra like a bolt of hot pepper at the beginning of the Third symphony?
The first and last movements tower like mountain, sky and wind, while the two inner movements are smaller and more intimate. These inner movements are expansions of Brahms's chamber music style. The perfection of these movements lies precisely in their intimate and personal nature. They are cradled between the heroic beginning and the towering finale like Peru's Colca Canyon, their depth giving rise to surrounding majesty.
It is perhaps the composer's most elusive symphony. The daring modulations in the first movement and delicate thematic inter-relationships are an astonishing testament to Brahms's powers of counterpoint. |
