PRE U 2010-11
Brahms and the Rebirth of the Symphony
Like all symphonists of the Nineteenth Century
Brahms faced a dichotomy – if he sought to emulate
the classical pusuit of organic coherence then he was
maintaining an ars occulta; and yet if he freed the new
harmonic and tonal rhetoric of all obligations to
structural logic they were releasing the tensions which
are a necessary precondition for the tonal contrast of
large spans of music time.
Brahms very aware of ‘the giant marching along
behind me’. He needed to placate the Beethoven
moral imperative of conceptual coherence. There are
in fact three facets to his heritage:
Beethoven and the Viennese Classical School
His Romantic contemporary sensibility
An interest in ‘early music’ leading him to explore archaic formal devices such as
canon
Respect for the music of the past led him to reject not only the radical innovations of
Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner but even most of the more modest structural advances of
Schumann and Mendelssohn:
Returns to Four Movements
Rejects titles
Strict Sonata Form in First Movements
Adapt the other forms of the classical period – ternary shapes, variation form,
minuet and scherzo
Employ the modest orchestra of Beethoven’s day
Harmonic functions within closed formal designs, carefully handling tension and
resolution and regulated by strong bass lines. Chromaticism is contained.
As a Romantic he was nonetheless drawn to:
Stanza-like melodies
Rich, chromatically inflected harmony
Detailed accompaniments
Unequal phrases
Tone-poetic passages and sentimentality
Needed to develop a new way of achieving thematic unity – develop new thematic
processes that allow him create unified ‘symphonic’ structures. This took a long time –
his First Symphony was some 21 years from first thoughts to final composition (and he
was careful to call it a ‘Symphonie’ implying that it had not the stature of a true
symphony).
Thematic development:
Brahms’ greatest achievement is to develop a melodic technique that is based upon
intricate thematic relationships. The principal melodic motives of a movement will be
unified by recurring intervals, rhythms and other gestures.
The First Symphony:
Broadly classical in its design – a minor work that strives to achieve a victory in
the major finale.
C minor – the key of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.
Thematically complex and dense, opening with two ‘pre-themes’ – ideas that will
become themes as the music progresses. The main theme appears initially only as
a counter-subject in the slow introduction.
There is extensive cross-referencing of themes between movements. Eg., the
main theme of the first movement appears elsewhere in the work, often
seamlessly woven into the texture.
The finale’s opening theme is reminiscent of the Freude theme of Beethoven
Ninth Symphony (Brahms angrily declared that ‘any donkey could see that!’).
This leads to a brilliant tour-de-force development and recapitulation.
From New Grove
The completion and première of the First Symphony in 1876 was a milestone for
Brahms and for symphonic music generally in Austro-German lands. Although it
was not universally loved, the symphony was acknowledged as the most
significant since Schumann. It adheres to the standard four-movement format
and as such was sometimes considered to contribute little to the development of
the genre after Beethoven's Ninth. In fact, Brahms adapted with great originality
the model of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which likewise progresses from
struggle in C minor towards triumph in C major by means of links between the
individual movements. In Brahms, these techniques include thematic-motivic
connections involving especially the figures of a descending 4th and a chromatic
rising 3rd, as well as a harmonic-tonal scheme in which the keys of the successive
movements depart from and return to C by major 3rds: C–E–A –C.
From Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Brahms took over the idea of giving both
outer movements slow introductions. The introduction to the finale revisits the
turbulent mood of the first one, then brings forth two new elements (a horn-call
and a chorale-like passage) that point towards resolution, which comes with the
famous first theme of the movement proper, a C major melody reminiscent of
Beethoven's Ode to Joy theme.
The First Symphony is special in its combination of contrapuntal density, fluid
phrase structure, and soaring lyricism. The main ‘theme’ of the first movement is
actually a complex of three different motifs presented simultaneously, then
immediately developed. The phrases generated are of irregular, constantly
changing lengths. At certain moments – and their rarity makes them especially
powerful – the momentum of this motivic style lets up to yield broader melodies,
as in the G tune in the development of the first movement and, more
prominently, in the C major theme of the finale.
The Second Symphony:
Far more lyrical than the first with a debt to Schubert as much as Beethoven –
note the waltz-like opening theme and the leisurely unwinding of long graceful
phrases.
Contains an extra-ordinary degree of motivic unification. Almost all the themes,
an astonishing proportion of all four movements, are linked by the opening three
note figure [x], its inversion [y] and its development [z], all to be found in the
opening bars.
Despite this extraordinarily potent formal logic the final result is one of complete
of spontaneity.
From New Grove
The Second Symphony in D op.73, composed less than a year after the
completion of the First, is often described as its sunny counterpart. The work
indeed radiates a warmth and tunefulness absent in parts of the earlier work. But
as Brahms himself acknowledged, the Second Symphony also has a ‘melancholy’
side. The lyrical opening theme of the first movement unravels almost at once
into a dark passage for timpani and trombones. The voice of melodic continuity
is reasserted often in this movement, however, first by the violin melody that
follows the unravelling and again by the second group and the large coda. The
pensive slow movement, in B major and in a modified sonata form, is dominated
by a motivically rich, metrically ambiguous main theme remarkable for its
combination of tunefulness and developing variation.
The second half of the symphony distinctly brightens in mood, although it too
contains sombre moments – often involving the trombones – that evoke the
expressive world of the first two movements. The Allegretto recasts the
traditional scherzo–trio alternation into a rondo-like structure that is one of
Brahms's most original creations. Although the finale ends the symphony in a
jubilant blaze of D major, it glances back at the mood of the earlier movements,
especially in the haunting passage at the end of the development section (whose
chains of descending 4ths Mahler recalled his First Symphony) and in the
syncopated episode for brass in the coda.
The Third Symphony:
Structured under similar principles to the Second Symphony but the work is
shorter - the development of the first movement is strikingly brief, something
that is typical of Brahms who tends to place greater emphasis on the exposition.
Internal and cross movement unity are achieved by use of a motto and associated
theme and by significant development of the slow movement themes in the
finale. The motto theme (heard at the start) maybe a cipher – F, A flat, F was
supposedly Brahms personal motto (standing for ‘Frei aber froh’).
The prominent A flat allows Brahms to play with major/minor differences – a
tonal mobility that brings with it symphonic conflict.
From New Grove
With his Third Symphony op.90 Brahms achieved a new level of coherence in a
large-scale orchestral work. It is the shortest of the four symphonies, lasting only
half an hour in most performances. The durations of the individual movements
are closer to being equal than in any of the others. The compact dimensions and
balanced proportions seem intended to point up processes that extend over the
entire work. These include the most direct thematic recall in any symphonic work
by Brahms: the opening motto and theme return transfigured at the end of the
finale. Coherence is also imparted by harmonic devices, such as the frequent
juxtaposition of F major and F minor. The tonal scheme is unique in the genre:
outer movements centred on F and inner movements on C, thus creating a
plateau of harmonic tension in the dominant that implies a large-scale sonata
form over the whole work.
The Fourth Symphony:
The finale takes on extraordinary proportions in this symphony as Brahms
creates a vast chaconne and his greatest achievement in instrumental form. Quite
extraordinary however are the motivic connections of the whole symphony, even
greater than the second. The opening theme, diatonic, presenting every note in
the scale, unifies the whole work. It is immediately restated but with a woodwind
accompaniment – variation form being worked into sonata form. This woodwind
theme forms the basis of the chaconne theme in the finale.
The chaconne is a set of variations over a repeating bass – Brahms rising to the
challenge to variation that a repeating bass brings. The melodies rising above it
spring from one another – theme 6 for example is a variant of 5 whislt 7 borrows
rhythm of 6. The climax is, typically of Brahms, presented in a canon.
From New Grove
In many ways the Fourth Symphony op.98, composed soon after the Third,
represents the summit of Brahms's achievement in the genre. The finale, in the
form of a passacaglia with a terse eight-bar theme and 30 variations, is his most
thoroughgoing attempt to synthesize historical and modern practice. While
observing the strictures of the ostinato subject, he created continuity by arranging
the variations in groups according to figuration, thematic style, dynamics and
harmony.
As in the Third Symphony, tonal relationships, here involving E and C, extend
over the entire work at both larger and more detailed levels. The four movements
are in E minor, E major, C major and E minor, respectively. At the beginning of
the recapitulation in the first movement, a C major triad that had been only a
discreet harmony at the opening becomes a broad arpeggio under the sustained
fourth note of the theme. In the Andante, the Phrygian inflections of the theme
continually bring C (as flattened sixth) into play. In the finale, whose ostinato
theme suggests a single harmonic framework, variations 26–8 are brought deftly
into the key of C major.
The Fourth Symphony is also remarkable for what Edward T. Cone called
‘harmonic congruence’, whereby the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the
music are fashioned from the same basic material. This principle is adumbrated
by the descending chain of melodic 3rds that shapes the main theme. Here and
elsewhere in the first movement, the augmented triad forms a significant element
on both the thematic and the harmonic axes. Congruence of this type
foreshadows remarkably Schoenberg's concept of the unity of musical space, in
which ‘there is no absolute down, no right or left, forward or backward’.