Sitcoms and Brahms

I've mentioned lately that I've had a few stressors going on, and I should add that for a while there was a flurry of old friends getting in touch and making me nostalgic for the past. That hasn't been entirely bad—among other things, it's created some complex emotional states that make certain types of music much more comprehensible. One of my old college chums was a piano major, and she loves Romantic music.
I was never so sure about it; it sounded overly emotional, embarrassingly histrionic, and once I compared Brahms to a "crying drunk." But I've been softening in this view. Just recently I listened to a piece and it seemed to reflect exactly a situation I lived through five years ago—incredible tenderness, then dark, tangled emotions, and then all that clearing like a fog and breaking through to the tenderness again, richer and deeper. (I'm talking about the Radu Lupu version of the Intermezzo Op. 117, No. 1 in E-flat, from an album that Alex Ross calls one of the most beautiful piano records ever made.) So I sent that version to the friend, and she was suitably enraptured. It was nice to let her know I'm coming along in appreciating the chahms of Brahms, and to share that version legally for a buck was pretty convenient.

So. Anyway. Crying drunk. I think the problem was the same as when you have a problem with your parents or children because they're exactly like you. I'm sort of an irascible person with a huge vein of sentiment flowing inside like an underground river. I wish Brahms would come back and we could get plastered and have a good cry about things. Here's Wikipedia on his personality:

Brahms was fond of nature and often went walking in the woods around Vienna. He often brought penny candy with him to hand out to children. To adults Brahms was often brusque and sarcastic, and he sometimes alienated other people. His pupil Gustav Jenner wrote, "Brahms has acquired, not without reason, the reputation for being a grump, even though few could also be as lovable as he." He also had predictable habits which were noted by the Viennese press such as his daily visit to his favourite "Red Hedgehog" tavern in Vienna and the press also particularly took into account his style of walking with his hands firmly behind his back complete with a caricature of him in this pose walking alongside a red hedgehog. Those who remained his friends were very loyal to him, however, and he reciprocated with equal loyalty and generosity.

I don't walk that way. And I'm not a historic genius at music or anything else. But some of the rest of that fits.

So when you have troubles you're in a different place for a while, and you acquire new friends, and I guess one of them is, more and more, Brahms. So be it. I'm also reminded of the TV show King of the Hill. (Bear with me on this.) In one episode a young girl becomes, shall we say, a woman, and her mother is consoling her about the upsides of PMS. The mother contrasts with the native Texan characters because she's an upwardly striving Laotian yuppie, intensely irascible herself, so she's showing a rare tender side when she talks about this benefit: "Make sad movies truly excellent! You watch "Titanic" on the right day, it blow you away!" I guess that's how I've been lately about Brahms.