Please talk about how one should understand Brahms and his music.

In classical music history, Brahms was a link between the past and future. In the early 19th century, after Beethoven, no one dared to write symphonies because they viewed him as unsurpassable. Brahms wrote many chamber music pieces, which were actually done in symphony fashion and were huge conceptually, a major feature of his chamber music. Early in his career, he worked as a choral director in numerous places, so he had a certain level of understanding of choral music as well and wrote many choral pieces. These pieces were performed with or without instrumental accompaniment, including some with chamber music ensembles, and all of them clearly exhibited features unique to Brahms. Though he wrote only a few symphonies, they are classics that took years—his first took more than ten! Though that process was by no means smooth, he gradually got faster with later pieces.
Also, his music was extremely standardized. Although you can't say he surpassed Beethoven, he was definitely on the same level. On the foundation of classical sonata forms, he integrated a number of Romantic elements, so we say he was a “Romantic classicist.” His work was far different from that of purely Romantic composers, such as Bruckner of the late Romantic period. This is why Brahms was a carrier of the classical into the Romantic.
Because of these features, he was praised by many. For instance, to such people as the renowned critic Hanslick, he was orthodox and thus very influential in the music realm and in society. Naturally, there were those on the other side of the spectrum who were more innovative, Wagner being one of them. He was self-taught and, as far as I'm concerned, a genius of amazing talent, but his ideas were a bit too unorthodox for many people, so he was set in opposition to Brahms. Wagner had an especially close relationship with Bruckner, which put the latter in opposition to Brahms. So the late 19^th-century Vienna saw a lot of drama in the music realm.
Since Brahms had written so much chamber music, his large symphonies include numerous chamber music elements, which partially explains why his symphonies are difficult to perform. Also, the performer must keep in mind that Brahms had both classical and Romantic aspects. The musician and conductor performing a piece of his must be able to sense that chamber music feeling. You can't say that a piece is necessarily a “large piece” just because it requires a large number of performers. Actually, a large piece needs to have a chamber music feel, and Brahms' symphonies stand out in this aspect.

As you just said, Brahms was the heir of Beethoven's legacy, and even people of his time believed so, but there are also those who thought that Brahms by no means took the initiative to follow that route. His career started with Schumann giving him the highest of recommendations and claiming that he would be able to continue Beethoven's legacy. So Brahms was given immense pressure from a young age because everyone was expecting him to produce symphonies on a par with Beethoven's, something that no one else had accomplished yet. Of course, composers such as Mendelssohn and Schumann were writing symphonies, but theirs weren't as great as Beethoven's. It seemed such talent was gone forever from the world. So they put their hope in Brahms, which is why it took him so much time to complete his first symphony,; he didn't finish it until mid-life. How does that influence what you think about Brahms' personality?

He was very traditional and toed the line of conventionalism, so he always thought long and hard about anything he did in a very legalistic way. He never would have just haphazardly written a piece of music; he was always meticulous to the last detail. Who knows how many times he revised his first symphony? According to him though, it took 21 years! This is why he didn't produce many large works. Even though he wrote a lot of pieces for piano and other things, he didn't produce many symphonies. Obviously, he didn't have much boldness for innovation. Compared with his contemporary Wagner, he was simply too conservative. Also, Brahms looked down on Liszt, viewing his music as too hollow and general. It is said that Brahms fell asleep listening to Liszt's performance of a sonata in B minor.
Schumann and Brahms were very different in style but still appreciated each other's work. Moreover, neither liked Wagner or Liszt, finding them too unorthodox. So while listening to Brahms, you can hear that he never goes outside the box. Nonetheless, he had a lot of unique features within his box of harmony and melody. In his chamber music, his features are seen in the beauty of the long line, which was different from the long line of Russian and Eastern European composers. In German tradition, the harmony was the main part, and notes from it were removed to be the melody in long line music. Brahms' work is especially noteworthy for this technique.
In addition, Brahms' boldest act was to frequently use Hungarian elements in his work. Listeners unfamiliar with European music may not readily sense this, but the elements are there throughout, even including inadvertently placed rhythmic patterns. This is clear in many of his chamber music pieces. For instance, his piano quartets are basically gypsy music! So in this aspect, I'm sure he thought a lot, but what he actually produced was not as full of thought as he believed.

Brahms had another feature: He often destroyed, sometimes even burned, pieces he had written that he was unsatisfied with. It's said that he wrote at least 30 string quartet pieces, but only three were published, so I think he was really cautious, full of self-doubt and self-negation. Bruckner was kind of like that too.
Also, you just mentioned that Brahms didn't produce many symphonies. But people have always liked them. A few years ago, BBC Music Magazine had people vote for their favorite symphonies, and each of Brahms' four symphonies made the top 20 while only some of Beethoven's, Mahler's, and Bruckner's made the same list. Why do people like Brahms' symphonies so much?

I'm sure a lot of things influenced those rankings, especially the fact that Brahms' symphonies have been performed so many times, in turn affecting people's preferences. As for his popularity, first is that the style of his early work was much like that of Beethoven. His being called “the heir of Beethoven” frequently in the media strongly affected the people and entire society of his day and even up to the present. Second, people like the innovation he carried out within the conventional framework, including the integration of chamber music, the harmonic shifts that people know so well, and the breakthroughs in melody. In addition, he wrote a lot of vocal and choral music, also loved by music fans because Beethoven didn't write in that genre, so Brahms became novel in the German music realm. Third, Brahms was very down to earth, as exemplified by his use of Hungarian music elements. At the time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire contained numerous countries, and Hungary was viewed by people of the empire as a very important component. Brahms blended Hungarian music into German and Austrian music to create a new style, which won him many fans. Each of his works may be used as a template for learning. His fan base was broad among other music professionals, society, and the music market.

Which of his symphonies is your favorite?

I really like his third.

That's my favorite too.

Let me tell you why. Most people think that lively, jarring pieces are the best, but that's not necessarily the case. The ultimate goal of music is to bring your soul to a state of balance. At its end, Symphony No. 3 reverts to a sense of tranquility in choral fashion, and I think that's what makes it especially amazing. To rank them, I'd first go with Symphony No. 3 followed by 4, 2, and 1.

Symphony No. 3 is my favorite too. It's not just because of the final movement either. All four movements end delicately, a rarity in music history. It also showed how his style was greatly transforming as his composition technique was maturing.
For the new NCPA Orchestra season, you've invited three conductors to work with you in presenting all four of Brahms' symphonies. In the previous season, you conducted numerous symphonies by Bruckner. How should people understand the difference between these two composers?

They're really quite different. Brahms' work embodies “traditional” German and Austrian music and is very down to earth, and because of his personality, he has none of the flippancy in his work that Wagner had; his work was really reserved, and such reservation has both merits and shortcomings. When music is reserved, people think it's not very direct and are unable to feel any impact inside. But through balanced, beautiful, subtle harmonic shifts and evolution of the tempo, he won people's favor.
For Bruckner, the keyword is “piety.” If we really want to compare the two, we must first realize that they had different religions. In Europe of that time, Catholicism and Protestantism were completely different. Brahms was from Hamburg and Bruckner from Linz, hence their different religions from birth. Bruckner was a devout Catholic his whole life, and he also had a very strong personality: He was never reserved, unlike Brahms. So in his symphonies, he expressed his feelings in his own unique musical language. If you can understand him and feel his emotions, you'll see that his emotions are even more richly presented than those of Mahler. Though he respected symphonic tradition, he made a lot of structural changes, adding in some of his own inventions, which was totally different from Brahms, who did things by the book without any deviation. Why do Bruckner's symphonies have such immense structures? Because the average structure couldn't hold his work, full of emotion and expression, he had to enlarge things to make sure he could say what he wanted to say. He didn't just add to the structure simply for the sake of enlarging it.
Also, as Bruckner got deeper and deeper into his religion, he got deeper into his feelings about religion, life, harmony, dissonance, and fate, so in his music, there's a lot of beauty. But he has a lot of inner turmoil. For instance, in his eighth symphony, we hear his complete fear of and caution regarding fate, and in his ninth, he seems to be in a completely other world searching for balance. This psychological realm and pursuit were very different from those of Brahms. If you like or are able to understand Bruckner's music and can see his inner thoughts through it, I'm sure you'll think Bruckner is more important than Mahler. That's my opinion anyway.
One of my professors in Berlin said Mahler is too verbose and gives off negative energy, but Bruckner is like Beethoven because even when dealing with fear and dejection, he gives off positive energy, which is quite amazing.

For a conductor and an orchestra, what do you think the biggest challenge is in interpreting Brahms' work?

Brahms' music is highly refined. His symphonies integrate a lot of chamber music elements as well as aspects of both classical and Romantic music. It's really hard to handle these things, and you have to very carefully look for the balance between the chamber and symphony aspects. Also, his music has a lot of Hungarian aspects in style and rhythm, and how to handle them well but not go overboard is quite difficult too. Brahms was an aesthetic, and the beauty of his music was full of variety. You have to think of his tone, tempo, cadence, harmonic shifts, sense of balance, structure, speed, etc. This is the biggest challenge in performing his music.