遅めのテンポですね、重厚　（1:07:47）
I know! in the 5 minutes before the performance I think about this tempo every time. I can answer with the brain: I remember reading that Brahms conducted the 1st piano concerto (also a 6/4) in 4 beats: 1, 3, 4, 6. So 6/4 is both an Allegro in 6 and a “dance” in 2. I am also aware that the syncopations in the 2nd violins and violas need time to resonate against each other, otherwise it’s just “noise”. But I will answer from the heart: the poignancy of this music works because of the terrible struggle on one side and the transcendency on the other. It needs to be turbulent, like the ocean in a storm.


こんな柔らかいブラームス初めて！　（1:10:50）
I think we play Brahms usually too loud, too bombastically. If you see the picture of him as an old man, then maybe one hears the music that way, but I think that was a “cover up” from Brahms. Look at the photo of him as a young person: he is very good-looking, and very sensitive.


浄化されていくようだ　（1:14:37）
How lovely you feel that: I agree. It makes sense of the journey, sense of life, only at the very end


一見メルヘンだけど本当は恐ろしい、的な　（1:15:40）
Isn’t it?!! Very interesting that Brahms writes this lovely melody and then writes sotto voce (under the  breath)//mezza voce (half voice): we WANT to say something very important but the words can’t come out. Either we are saying this to someone we love who is asleep (and will never know how much we want to say) , or we have something incredibly  important to say, but have no means to say it. Again: turbulent, tension, a world not yet fulfilled


なるほど2楽章とのへだたりがなくなる　（1:23:29）
French music I feel opens a gateway to “heaven” and for the length of the piece we are allowed to be spirits again. There is no “development” just a state of “being”, then the gateway closes. German music has a narrative, a development from one state to another. Except Brahms 3 maybe: all the movements are somehow episodes of the same state of being. The end of the last mmt tells us a solution to the questions of the first mmt but it doesn’t “solve” the questions. It just says “we can rest now: tomorrow we know where the answers might lie”. I wanted to bring these 4 mmts into this one state of being: different views of the same “crystal”


見たことのない景色が広がる　（1:27:12）
I love the way these suspensions seem to be hang in the air, but are actually resolved by another voice somewhere else in the orchestra. It’s as if one life only throws up questions that only another person can answer. Each piece of the jigsaw is alone until it becomes completed by another piece of the jigsaw. This passage  both “disjointed” and totally complete at the same


そう、焦らなくていいんだ、ブラームス　（1:27:33）
I wanted to take enough time to hold your hand on this “Andante” walk to show you all that is around us, but yet I never want the music to become static. Music is like the sea, it is never a mountain, even if it has the same mass (and emotional power) as one…


アンサンブルが素晴らしい　（1:30:17）
I think these players are simply amazing. They are brave enough to be generous enough to leave all their egos behind, give to each other, and somehow then we are all riding on the same chi flow, and thoughts become music. 


この解釈に半ばショックだよ、良い意味で　（1:30:22）
I am shocked by this piece too: I know my spirit has chosen to come to this world to learn something important in this life, but there are times when I am homesick, and this music shows us the shocking beauty of the journey we have all chosen, I think


世界観変わりそうです　（1:44:57）
What an amazing to say, and write. Music touches us all, takes no sides, embraces all people, and genuinely heals us, changing us for the better. 


密かに聞こえるピッチカートがたまらん　（1:46:03）
me too: it’s somehow incredibly inspiring. Against all this power on top


2日目のカレーみたく熟成されている　（1:47:04）
Haha: wonderful!! Exactly!  Having the opening sotto voce theme now in the Basses (whereas it wasn’t there the first time this passage came) is hugely enriching: feeds the soul just when we want it! Mind you, I could say the same thing about how  these pieces  have changed as I’ve got older….I am nearly 60 and they challenge one/me to dare to express  in public/with you, what I think, in this case Brahms was trying to show  us. There is no room for ego, no room for cowardice , nor for trying to “show off. Just to  try every time to share the beauty with you…


昨日があって今日、今日があっての明日、明日を生きよう！　（1:48:52）
I would like to meet you. I am a little empty after these big musical journeys. I lose part of myself and gain another part. I need  to sit very quietly in a corner and let the soul find the body again. What you write made me smile, it is real wisdom, and an inspiration.

ご視聴はこちらから