Mark Haddon's musical passions

Mark Haddon seems to have wonderfully ecletic tastes in music. On today's Private Passions, he went from Britten to David Raksin to Steve Reich to Autechre to Mozart to Sonic Youth to Elliott Carter to Kate Rusby. Very cool.

Brahms: a realisation

I first listened to Brahms' symphonies, years and years ago on scratch vinyl I'd inherited from my parents after they were deemed too hazardous to the health of pater's much fussed over Lenco. I didn't think much of them. Compared to Beethoven, Brahms seemed unadventurous and dull. Compared to Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Prokofiev he felt too mannered and too obsessed with the mechanics of form.

But now when I listen to the symphonies, I realise that everything I thought I knew was wrong and what I'd though of as dullness was actually dazzling technical brilliance. I find that I love the extended use of sonata form, the way ideas and themes are foreshadowed and the way that sometimes contradictory ideas are forged into a cohesive whole. I love the way that something as apparently conservative as final passacaglia in the 4th was actually a act of rediscovery and renewal. And when I hear the themes, motifs I used to think of as trite and not really up to much, I now find that I recognise them for the beautiful things they truly are.

I just wish it hadn't taken me twenty years to realise all this...