95073
Brahms
Serenades 1 and 2 • Overtures Haydn Variations RAFAEL FRÜHBECK DE BURGOS • GÜNTER HERBIG • HEINZ BONGARTZ
BRAHMS Serenades • Overtures & Variations CD1 Serenade No.1 in D Op.11 1 I. Allegro molto 2 II. Scherzo: Allegro non troppo 3 III. Adagio non troppo 4 IV. Menuetto I & II 5 V. Scherzo: Allegro 6 VI. Rondo: Allegro
52’14 14’04 8’14 16’50 3’25 3’03 6’26
Dresdner Philharmonie Heinz Bongartz CD2 1 Academic Festival Overture Op.80 2 Tragic Overture Op.81
3’21 0’56 4’02
Serenade No.2 in A Op.16 13 I. Allegro moderato 14 II. Scherzo: Vivace 15 III. Adagio non troppo 16 IV. Quasi menuetto 17 V. Rondo: Allegro
9’06 2’47 7’29 5’50 6’49
London Symphony Orchestra (1) Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (1) Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester (2–12) Günter Herbig (2–12)
75’29 10’40 13’15
Variations on a theme by Haydn Op.56a ‘St Anthony Variations’ orchestral version 3 Theme: St Anthony Chorale (Andante) 2’08 4 Variation 1: Poco più animato 1’15 5 Variation 2: Più vivace 0’57 6 Variation 3: Con moto 1’58 7 Variation 4: Andante con moto 2’10 8 Variation 5: Vivace 0’53 9 Variation 6: Vivace 1’22 2
10 Variation 7: Grazioso 11 Variation 8: Presto non troppo 12 Finale: Andante
Dresdner Philharmonie (13–17) Heinz Bongartz (13–17)
Recording: 1989, Henry Wood Hall, London (CD2, tr.1) Cover image: Caspar David Friedrich, The Watzmann, 1824-25, Nationalgalerie, Berlin P 1962 VEB Deutsche Schallplatten Berlin (CD1 & CD2, tr.13–17) P 1978 (CD2, tr.2), 1979 (CD2, tr.3–12) Edel Gesellschaft für Produktmarketing mbH © 2015 Brilliant Classics Licensed from Phoenix Music Ltd, UK (CD2, tr.1); Edel Germany (CD1 & CD2, tr.2–17) 3
Serenade No.1 Gifted but without prospects or money, the young Brahms was glad enough to accept a modest musical post at the court of the Prince of Detmold during the winters of 1857, 1858 and 1859. His duties were uninspiring and the pay small, but he gained valuable practical experience in corporate musicmaking and profited from his immersion in the classical scores housed in the library. His d minor Piano Concerto dated from those years and so too did his two Serenades, Op.11 and Op.16, both achieving their definitive form in 1860. The former one, in D major, had in fact begun life as a nonet for wind and strings. On Joachim’s recommendation, Brahms rescored it for Beethoven-size orchestra, with four horns but without trombones. An early composition therefore and more expansive in its outer movements than Brahms would have favoured in later days, it has the qualities of conspicuous tunefulness, charm, freshness and vigour. By definition it could be expected to exceed the normal symphonic span of movements, and there are six, including two Scherzos and a Minuet. Haydn and early Beethoven loom large among its formative influences: what for instance could be more Haydnish than the start of the opening Allegro and its witty conclusion or indeed the second Scherzo. In the Minuet, however, older procedures are invoked, its Trio entitled Menuetto II after Baroque usage. If Brahms’ command of the orchestra at that period lacked the sophistication it subsequently attained, the Serenade’s scoring sounds perfectly valid, his writing for horns and clarinets showing intimations of what was to come. By the same token, some of his idiomatic finger-prints are already in evidence, notably his fondness of triplets and the rhythmic effect of three against two, hemiolia. It is the extended, sonata-form Adagio that the essence of Brahms reflective vein, then and thereafter, is to be heard. 4
Overtures Brahms often seems to have tackled a particular compositional form by writing works in contrasted pairs (two early orchestral serenades, two piano quartets in his late twenties, two clarinet sonatas at the end of his life). His two concert overtures (1878-80) likewise form a near-simultaneous study in contrasts. The Academic Festival Overture was an expression of thanks to the University of Breslau for awarding Brahms a Doctorate of Music honoris causa. Characteristically self-deprecating, he referred to the work as “a potpourri of student songs”. But it is vastly more artful and humorous than that: a fully worked-out but defiantly ‘un-academic’ sonata structure in C major masquerading as a free fantasia or quodlibet. Moreover, student songs were venerable and popular enough to be counted a species of folk music, and Brahms treated them with similar fondness. The result is accordingly an ironic student’s-eye view of the nobility of learning, ending with a grand apotheosis of the most famous student song of all, ‘Gaudeamus igitur’. The Tragic Overture is utterly different. Though the title is carefully noncommittal, it is believed to be connected with an unsuccessful project to stage Goethe’s Faust complete at Vienna’s Burgtheater. Whatever its origins, Brahms here creates a compelling musical image of human defiance against adverse fate that can be appreciated without reference to any particular literary model. It is an unorthodox sonata form, dramatic in its themes, atmospheric in its transitions. The development halves the tempo and becomes a kind of spectral slow movement, groping forward in crepuscular half-light towards an angry recapitulation and coda. 5
St Anthony Variations It was not until the second half of the last century that self-contained orchestral variations began to emerge, Brahms showing the way with his Op. 56. For him it was an almost predestined move. Since his earliest days he had been interested in the form, examples including several sets for keyboards, on for instance themes by Schumann. Handel and Paganini, not to mention the slow movement of his String Sextet in B flat. What fired Brahms to write the present variations was his being shown by C. F. Pohl (Haydn’s 19th-century biographer) an open-air suite or Feldpartita in B flat, then attributed to Haydn and scored for wind band. Its second movement in particular caught his fancy, one based on a pilgrim’s hymn from the Burgenland (between Austria and Hungary), known as the Chorale St Antoni. Three years later, during the summer of 1873, Brahms set to work on the theme, deriving from it two parallel sets of variations, one for piano duet, one for full orchestra. By then, with his first symphony on the stocks, he felt confident of doing himself justice in a wholly orchestral composition. The theme’s wind-band origin is stressed from the outset, although Brahms replaced Haydn’s serpent by a double bassoon with pizzicato cellos and basses in support. It is in two repeated sections of ten and nineteen bars and contains prominent features which are to be subsequently exploited. These are the close-lying course of the tune; its dotted rhythm; its harmonisation in sixths; its studied two-in-a-bar pulse; the uneven five-bar length of the first phrase, and the insistent emphasis upon the tonic note of B flat at the end of the second. From those materials Brahms fashioned a strictly constructed and perennially vivid series of orchestral character studies. There are eight 6
variations, concluding with a Passacaglia. This culminates in a powerful coda, reintroducing a fortissimo version of the original theme. Serenade No.2 Just as his first Serenade Brahms had written his second Serenade to acquaint himself with orchestral writing. Thus making use of the opportunity provided when working with the Detmold orchestra. Unlike his early piano music both serenades show a still developing Brahms who was feeling his way around to find a personal style. The second serenade was finished in 1859 and revised in 1875. Both serenades have a suite form and are more or less studies. The second is scored for an orchestra without violins, giving it a more characteristic serenade sound. In both serenades Brahms used the sonata form. Clarinets and bassoons open the first movement stating the theme which continues to be developed by the other wind instruments. Then a second theme is introduced by the clarinets. Both themes being very melodious, this is a highly romantic movement. The next movement, a brisk Scherzo, is followed by a dreamy Adagio with the flute and clarinet playing the melody over a soft bed of strings. The fourth movement, a charming Minuet and Trio, precedes the final brilliant Rondo, with the first theme announced by the clarinet and the second once again by clarinets and bassoons, ending in an elaborate canon.
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