The First Piano Concerto (1854–1859) emerged from sketches for a sonata for two pianos when Brahms understood that the work was not at all chamber-like in terms of its scale. The composer restored a heroic image to the soloist, whom Romantics had so often presented as a martyr. No self-will and no rubato: the first piano solos are accompanied by measured accents of the trumpets and kettle drums. These subside only when the soloist begins a new theme – in the character of a triumphant hymn.
The composer himself said of the second section that it was a portrait of Clara Schumann, while the first theme in the manuscript is marked with the words “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” The theme of the finale is in the Hungarian manner. A similar theme was to come in the finale of the Double Concerto, secondary themes in the Fourth Symphony and in the finale of the Second Piano Concerto – the composer of the Hungarian Dances was true to his passions.
The form of the finale is stern and commensurate. As a concert pianist, Brahms gave the soloist only brief cadenzas. Unfortunately, the first audience in Leipzig did not see any virtuoso skill in Brahms’ original technique. The premiere was a fiasco and ruined the young composer’s relationship with his publishers Breitkopf und Härtel. On the other hand, Brahms quickly found himself another publisher – Friedrich Simrock, and the rest is history...
Anna Bulycheva
Barely familiar with his piano sonatas, Robert Schumann saw a symphony composer in Brahms. Composing for orchestra was Schumann’s legacy to his younger colleague. Clara Schumann, who had at one time inspired her brilliant husband to turn to the symphony genre, now inspired Brahms to work in that genre too (interestingly, both composers wrote four symphonies apiece).
In Brahms’ First Symphony (1862–1876) there is much that is reminiscent of Beethoven. The music moves “from darkness to light,” here you can sense the desire and readiness “to grab destiny by the throat” and the entire first movement flows in a battle between high and low voices. Following the example of Haydn’s late sonatas and Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, the second movement was composed in a tonality very remote from the main one as if it were flowing in some other reality. The third movement is a gracious and feminine scherzo. The finale is one of Brahms’ most intense achievements, one of which he was justifiably proud. The broad theme in major key from the introduction may have suggested to Mahler the idea that a “symphony should be like the world.” The main theme with its many voices resounds like a chorale, in parts resembling Beethoven’s Ode to Joy: after the battle in the first movement, in the finale a long-awaited union occurs. The symphony was published by Simrock, and published so well that Brahms wrote to his publisher of their joint work “It is lying on the piano and is delighting and surprising everyone; I have to stop young composers seeing it, otherwise you would be sent too many symphonies.”
Anna Bulycheva
