Listening to the Voices

That would be the inner voices. Brahms was another genius in the music world IMHO, maybe or maybe not on the level of JS Bach, but a genius nonetheless. Plus he had a nice bushy beard:

In an attempt to avoid racing over the first two pages of the Intermezzo, I have been focusing on the inner voices. As a bassoonist and alto, I know a little about the value of the middle to lower parts of the staff, and Brahms has given much to consider with regard to them in this pieces. Maybe he meant to call it an inner mezzo, you know like listening to your inner mezzo. (As opposed to listening forever to a diva soprano.) Maybe not. Anyway...

The swell and beauty of his theme is changed ever so slightly and quite deliciously by the subtle chord changes and inversions as carried by both the left and right hands. They are also places easily fluffed over by a less attentive player. Not to mention any names.You could play through the first two pages anyway with sort of approximations of the chord changes.  But the warmth that is Brahms is exemplified in this piano piece surely, and it is attention to detail that can express it.

I have spent the last two practice periods focusing on these changes and have been playing them veeeerrrry slooooowly and out of rhythm on occasion (on purpose). It is like a kind of savoring of something very endorphin-releasing. Many such opiates come to mind -- pick your own.  But I have been avoiding playing the piece up to tempo, because I have to relearn some of these chord changes 100% accurately, which means unlearning the old ways. But I prefer to think of it as a relearning of his beauty and tripping out on the so lovely warmth that a piece in key with sharps (it is in A, mostly) can provide. Mmmmmmmmmm.