By: Katerina Badoova
The Korean Drama Do You Like Brahms? (2020) is absolutely a must-watch!
From the storyline and the acting to the classical music, everything is simply beautiful about it.
It is a coming of age story and it follows the lives of classical musicians and their struggles as they pursue their passion and sometimes even part ways with it.
To some, music may seem like an amazing career choice, especially if a musician is extremely talented. And a lot of the time musicians tend to make playing an instrument seem easy – maybe it’s because they’re so good at it and the audience doesn't get to see the hardships they might go through.
However this K-drama shows the difficulties that come with choosing music as a career path and how being talented doesn't always lead to rainbows and butterflies.
If you ask a musician what age they started playing an instrument at, they will usually say from a very young age. It’s quite rare for someone to start pursuing classical music at an older age, especially if they aren’t particularly gifted. This drama explores exactly that!
An aspirin violinist, Chae Song-Ah (Park Eun-bin), is in her late 20’s and has only started seriously playing the violin after she graduated university. She’s not particularly gifted, but she loves it and she is constantly trying to make it as a musician. She is a sweet young woman who is very passionate about classical music and wishes to play the violin as part of an orchestra.
But sometimes the world is cruel and somehow it has been taking it out on poor Song-Ah. All she wants is to pass her university degree as a violinist and to finally have the chance to play with an orchestra, but things just don’t work out like she wants to.
Over the summer, Song-Ah has the chance to work as an intern at a classical music foundation Kyunghoo Cultural Foundation, and there she becomes close with an elite and extremely talented pianist Park Joon-Young (Kim Min-jae).
Song-Ah is a fan of his and since they were both born in the same year (in Korea it is more likely for you to get along well with someone if you’re born in the same year as them) they end up becoming good friends.
Remember when I mentioned how the world is sometimes cruel? Well if Song-Ah was treated badly, Joon-Young has definitely seen even worse! Even though he is considered as an elite pianist, his life is anything but elite.
Joon-Young comes from a poor family, his mother runs a small restaurant and any of the money she makes usually gets gambled away by Joon-Young’s father. So the young man started competing in order to make money and pay for his fathers’ never ending debts.
From a young age, he was trained to compete in playing piano but he has never been satisfied with it because he has been dealing with stress and anxiety because of it, since he was a young boy. And his father‘s constant gambling problem didn't help with his hardships either.
So he decides to stop competing and enrolling in Seoryeong University instead, the same university Song-Ah attends. And there they become even more closer through similar interests, especially music and their equally pitiful lives.
What I like most about this drama is the classical music that is constantly being thrown at you as you watch. The continuous mentions of classical pieces like Schumann’s Traumerei, Céasar Franck’s Sonata for piano and violin, Brahms’ Scherzo and many more was honestly very satisfying to see as not many shows use classical music anymore.
Anyone that’s a sucker for classical music, coming of age stories, cute romance, drama, or unrequited love, will absolutely love this K-drama. So if you are one of those people or you simply want to watch something new, this Korean drama is definitely for you.
It’s a 10/10 for me!
Comments