WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR

Brahms (1833–1897)

Violin Concerto in D Major, Op 77 (1878)

Allegro non troppo

Adagio

Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace

Symphony No 1 in C minor, Op 68 (1862–76)

Un poco sostenuto — Allegro Andante sostenuto

Un poco allegretto e grazioso

Adagio — Allegro non troppo, ma con brio

Tonight’s concert might be devoted entirely to the music of Johannes Brahms, as are two later concerts this season. But there’s another composer floating in the background of today’s performance, one whose ghostly presence we really shouldn’t ignore: Ludwig van Beethoven.

Brahms and Beethoven never met –Beethoven died six years before Brahms was born. But if we shouldn’t ignore the earlier composer, Brahms simply couldn’t. ‘You have no idea how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us,’ Brahms famously told a friend, in an attempt to convey the struggles he felt composing a symphony just decades after Beethoven’s own iconic, pioneering works in the form.

We’ll return to the painful gestation of Brahms’ First Symphony shortly. Beethoven hovers behind both works in tonight’s programme, and the earlier composer’s 1806 Violin Concerto served as a conscious model for Brahms when he was writing his own Violin Concerto in 1878. But it was yet another man, this time very much alive, who exerted the most direct and formative influence on Brahms’ Violin Concerto.

Though only 16, violinist Joseph Joachim was already something of an international star when the 14-year-old Brahms first encountered him in 1848, as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (what else?). Joachim gave such a passionate, committed performance that Brahms later confessed to him: ‘I reckoned the Concerto to be your own… I was certainly your most enraptured listener.’

The two young men quickly became firm friends, and remained so for the rest of their lives. And they were united by shared values: a passion for the music of the past, and an unshakeable belief that music’s purpose was to convey meaning and substance, rather than simply titillate with flashy virtuosity.

Brahms was a 45-year-old with two symphonies under his belt by the time he came to write his Violin Concerto in 1878. He’d held off, perhaps, to allow his friend his own time in the spotlight: Joachim was a fine composer as well as a violinist, and had written three concertos for his own instrument. Perhaps not surprisingly, when Brahms embarked on his own Violin Concerto, he immediately turned to Joachim for advice, which the violinist was only too happy to supply. With Brahms ensconced in his summer compositional hideaway at the Austrian lakeside resort of Pörtschach, they communicated mainly by letter:

Joachimwasafine composeraswellasa violinist,andhadwritten threeconcertosforhis owninstrument.Perhaps notsurprisingly,when Brahmsembarkedonhis ownViolinConcerto,he immediatelyturnedto Joachimforadvice,which theviolinistwasonlytoo happytosupply.

Brahms took pains to thank his friend for his suggestions, only to ignore many of them. Nonetheless, Joachim’s contributions were sizeable, including composition of the first movement’s virtuosic solo cadenza, still often played today.

As an overall model for his Concerto, however, Brahms consciously looked to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto for inspiration, even writing his work in the same key –D major – as if to make comparisons explicit. His intention – one that Joachim happily shared – was to follow Beethoven’s lead in creating a solo part that demonstrated the musicianship and profound insights of the performer, rather than simply showcasing their technical virtuosity. That said, there are plenty of challenging fiddle fireworks in Brahms’ Concerto, though they’re finely integrated into the work’s musical argument and development.

Brahms himself conducted the Concerto’s premiere, with Joachim as soloist, in Leipzig on New Year’s Day, 1879. Even then, he couldn’t escape Beethoven: Joachim had insisted on opening the concert with the earlier composer’s own Violin Concerto, as if to demonstrate that Brahms’ new work could stand as every bit an equal to Beethoven’s. (Brahms himself was less convinced: ‘It was a lot of D major – not much else on the programme,’ he later drily observed.)

There were mixed reactions to Brahms’s new Concerto, however. At its Viennese premiere, the audience adored it, while in Berlin, the response was more muted. One wag – variously identified as conductor Hans von Bülow or his colleague Josef Hellmesberger – described it as being written ‘against the violin’ rather than for the instrument. ‘You’ll think twice before you ask me for another concerto!’ Brahms wrote to Joachim following the premiere. Nonetheless, he withheld publication of the piece for several years to allow Joachim exclusivity over performances. Not that there was a surge of demand from other violinists. Spanish virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, for instance, refused to play the work, arguing: ‘I don’t deny that it’s fairly good music, but does anyone imagine that I’m going to stand on the rostrum, violin in hand, and listen to the oboe playing the only tune in the slow movement?’

Now, however, Brahms’ Violin Concerto is considered one of the finest, most expressive, and most exquisitely crafted works of its kind. It was Joachim who famously included it among his list of the four greatest concertos – alongside those of Mendelssohn, Bruch and (naturally)

Beethoven. Brahms opens with a unison melody, almost like an outdoor horn call heard from afar, before continuing with an oboe theme against gently undulating strings. It almost amounts to the bare bones of what the violinist will shortly introduce as the first movement’s dramatic main theme, announced in a stormy D minor. Brahms continues with a noble second theme (based on the opening horn-call idea), and even a tender, third melody set against pizzicato accompaniment.

His second movement opens with the long oboe melody that Sarasate so objected to, with accompaniment from just woodwind and horns, so that when the strings enter to accompany the soloist’s more heavily decorated version, we feel like we’re entering a new sonic world. The stomping, exuberant dance of a finale is perhaps Brahms’ tribute to Joachim’s Hungarian roots. But its lively rhythms are offset by contrasting themes that have little to do with Hungary at all, and, just as it seems to be heading for a restful, subdued ending, Brahms unleashes his confident, celebratory final chords.

It was Joseph Joachim who first introduced Brahms to fellow composers Robert and Clara Schumann. She was also a revered pianist and teacher, and he was also editor of what was then Europe’s most influential music publication, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. It was in that editorial capacity that Robert Schumann, having taken one look at the young Brahms’s compositions in 1853, promptly proclaimed the younger man a musical genius and the worthy successor to Beethoven, in an article he entitled ‘New Paths’.

Brahms’ initial reaction was one of awestruck gratitude. He wrote to Schumann:

‘You have made me so extremely happy that I cannot attempt to express my thanks in words. May God grant that my works will soon be able to prove to you how much your love and kindness have uplifted and inspired me.’ Feelings of thankfulness were soon joined, however, by the dread of expectation. How on earth would he ever live up to the hopes that Schumann had for his abilities, and the expectations that Schumann had no doubt raised in many others too?

All of which at least partly explains the extremely long gestation of Brahms’ First Symphony. The composer himself counted it as taking him 21 years, from his very earliest sketches in 1855 – just two years after Schumann’s article – to its completion in 1876. Brahms was already a fastidious composer, with a sense of self-criticism that led him to destroy many pieces he felt simply weren’t up to scratch. When the piece in question was a symphony, however, that only made matters worse. Though the form had begun life as a relatively brief, lightweight affair, in Haydn and Mozart’s hands the symphony had become longer and had more to say, and Beethoven’s pioneering symphonies had transformed the form into the pinnacle of musical thought and expression, often at their most abstract, and a demonstration of music’s ability to convey the profoundest ideas and emotions. ‘After Haydn,’ Brahms wrote, ‘writing a symphony is no longer a joke, but a matter of life and death.’

Brahmswasalreadya fastidiouscomposer,with a sense of self-criticism thatledhimtodestroy manypieceshefeltsimply weren’tuptoscratch. Whenthepieceinquestion wasasymphony, however,thatonlymade matters worse.

When Brahms’ First Symphony did finally receive its premiere – in Karlsruhe, on 4 November 1876 – reactions were rather awe-struck. Influential Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick didn’t hold back in his praise for the work: ‘Seldom, if ever, has the

‘Seldom,ifever,hastheentiremusicalworldawaiteda composer’sfirstsymphonywithsuchtenseanticipation. Thenewsymphonyissoearnestandcomplex,soutterly unconcernedwithcommoneffects,thatithardlylends itselftoquickunderstanding.Eventhelaymanwill immediatelyrecogniseitasoneofthemostdistinctive andmagnificentworksofthesymphonicliterature.’ entire musical world awaited a composer’s first symphony with such tense anticipation. The new symphony is so earnest and complex, so utterly unconcerned with common effects, that it hardly lends itself to quick understanding. Even the layman will immediately recognise it as one of the most distinctive and magnificent works of the symphonic literature.’

Hanslick was no doubt implying that it wasn’t for the casual listener, an appraisal we might question nowadays. But it was clear that Brahms was attempting to inject new ideas into tried and trusted symphonic forms, most notably a sense of constant thematic transformation, whereby melodies are perpetually altered in their rhythms or shapes, assigned to different instruments, fractured, reconfigured and reassembled, enabling the composer to explore all of the possibilities they offer. (Brahms’ own assessment of his new work was less flattering: he called it ‘long and not exactly lovable’.)

His thematic transformations are launched amid the throbbing intensity of the first movement’s slow introduction, during which Brahms reveals all the material he’ll explore in more depth across the rest of the movement. When the pace picks up, the violins’ dramatic leaping theme nonetheless retains the introduction’s weightiness and seriousness of purpose. Brahms’ second movement opens with a tender though nonetheless rugged theme in the strings, before the oboe introduces the movement’s melting main melody.

His third movement – a brief, gentle, softly spoken scherzo – serves as an extended introduction to his finale, whose own dark, somewhat menacing introduction soon gives way to a disarmingly simple, noble melody in the violins, surely Brahms’ response to the famous ‘Ode to Joy’ from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Conductor Hans von Bülow famously referred to Brahms’ First Symphony as ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’, no doubt as a compliment, but also to draw attention to the clear similarities between it and Beethoven’s own symphonies. Brahms’ response? ‘Any ass can see that.’ For him, those similarities counted as tributes, not plagiarism.

© David Kettle