ERS GUtpp 5 because ses Bras Imitation, «¢, Shimmering string tremolandos remind us of the introduct aerial ings ie he fn notes, bt onl he ist ew nae, othe "Declare P sovereign ws fy. Then Brahm cseleite ino diting eda, a woe hgh point mln hyo phrase fom the inrotion bls is way aro the ia Under. ee final and triumphant transformation. in debe te For his successors, Beethoven was a presence both scary and inspiring. outcry thee gest responded with self-confidence, Bralims was neurori but when > point it at last he brought himself to move, he moved surely. Joachim, writing to : cana sein March 1877 from Cambridge, England, where he had just intro ear him ae Fist Symphony, refers to it asa piece that “really gets to peo- » That has not changed. tempera. ple. ion. A te. ¢ dynamic a i layed with symphony No. 2 in D major, Opus 73 Earlier it with od Allegro non troppo s) ae Adagio non troppo oleae Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)—Presto ma non assai— re melody Tempo |—Presto ma non assai—Tempo 1 Allegro con spirito nediately. insist on ; nd, third, Brahms composed the Symphony No, 2 in the summer of 1877, and Hans "Richter conducted the first performance at a Vienna Philharmonic concert 30 December that year. 9 flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trum- three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings. spring in his later years, Brahms had to resolve the crisis of deciding spend the summer. Those summers were crucial. That was when i sing done, the really concentrated and demanding part of year was devoted to sketching scores to be dealt with n Jhing what had been accomplished the sum- | seemingly endless labor of proofreading, and or pianist he cared to take on. Each after couple of years, and so thestared along time before raking ce say on the is eold in the € » symphony. That S107 bitions and completed f ome hi le oe so eo ele both by his har wo spiritual in * its early performances that con another sym The First is a hero! the key) of the Beethoven Fifth.® Brahms’s Soa by c aon and expansiveness, and critics were quick: fo) BO ri wih peaked Fifth/Pastoral pair of 1807-08. No veins eager to let on what the character of his new have only to sit down at the piano,” he advised his Herogenberg on 22 November 1877, “placing your litt pedals in tur and striking the chord of F minor sever | sion, fist in the treble, then in the bass (ff and pp).”: Much as ‘enjoyed the prospect of his friend’s eventual discovery his most tight single F-minor chord in the entire symphony.) Three ¥ Frcegrate am still referring to his “latest” as “the F minor,” and writ pe uisl eat Herzogenberg on the day of the dress rehearsal for the p almost at onc that “the orchestra here plays my new ‘Sinfonie” with e cs Bae sleeves because of its dirge-like effect, and it is to be pi border too."? Brahms played no such flirtatious games with the ‘ick, to whom he wrote, “In the course of the wine a symphony that sounds s0 cheerful and delightful “especlly for you, or rather for your young wifes"fia tegige vein (and son, is all Brahms 7" sn Vienna, and within the year there were er Brahms's own direction, in Leipzig, ee Hamburg, Dresden, Dibseldor and Breda, i “The Dresden concert precipitated a crisis that Brahms enjoyed im- ly. Clara chumann was to be the pianist in Beethoven's Choral vas, but Franz Willner, newly appointed court conductor in Dresden put the Magic Fire Music from Die Walkie on the program too (he Fa fed the frst performances of Rheingold and Walle), and Frau Schu- Fann shuddered at the thought of sharing a program with the detested Wagner. “Imagine our poor friend's torture,” wrote Brahms to Heinrich Jon Herzogenberg. “I shall of course write and urge her to come, though the whole thing isso comic that I shall find it hard to be serious abour it.” Brahms actually expected Frau Schumann to cancel, but her professional- jem and her curiosity about the new symphony overcame her musico- politcal principles and she kept the date. Elisabet von Herzogenberg, an jntelligent but priggish and humorless woman, was very much on Clara Schumann's side and thought Brahms's attitude frivolous: “There really is want of delicacy to the arrangement of the program. How can any audi- tence be expected to appreciate really artistic work and a piece like the Magic Fire Music on one and the same evening? © Willner, Wallner! 1 always thought you a gentleman, but this program betrays the impresario.” Much as Beethoven's Pastoral, for all its “harmless” surface, is one of his most tightly composed works, so is the Brahms Second a singularly integrated, concentrated symphony. It begins with a double idea, a fairly neutral four-note motif in cellos and basses, upon which hors, joined almost at once by bassoons, superimpose a romantically atmospheric mel- ody, But it is the bass component of this double theme taal Sec heat ae eS iets eng e ‘HE sYMPHONY: 4 MISTENER'S ich and varied in j nes Bro monly rich an‘ 2 in its Johan" emer i8 uncommon’, for low brass with cellos rs conduct© e-chord FON on of the three-note monte os fosart 34 z of Ms likin 0! This fist eine 2" ideas roll and an between violin: ve drum sation betw S and flute his so conve ing tune for cellos ang ae resent ; a glow ty ect 000 panty leaping theme spine is shad see ellos OF pack) for Jus 2 little extra emphas jad the m0! enente (08 long-delayed arrival in the dominan come to the 3 leno and to absorbs and that is a good ja uses it 10 bes grazios© and is much Tse ercogenberg COmespOndENCE it eng i ee elf always did- 1 Ie extreme points, for this net ane physical energy. Brahms takes bath of sk amon ee rif recapitulation. He sends unmis ft te three note motto (ist at half speed and ino This vthe romantic horn phrase, and to the but he manages the pacing of all this so subtly anj via em so cay about withholding a clear-cut D-maor mony that he seems magically to move straight from anticipation and ex. er aa point where we realize the recapitulation i already nd way, This is one of the exceedingly rare moments at which Brahms peri _ Fe cf ehe marking “espressvo.” The coda brings another such moma, combined with a characteristically Brahmsian challenge—muffed outright bintenoniee be at the same time sempre tranquil anda Reviewing a Brahms conce i Orchestra, Thane a ter be al eae i Fal, "bame sw epndable™ We do eee lat hear hs eal pate Whe wu fen see iliar, particularly the four symphonies inzlecua~ina wor, “difcale” nega soa Second Symphonyrelly linecing, Ro ‘movement mati pot the meme ge dan fom the Fouth-we can ahs jee we difcult composer. Or, rather, Cause some of his music net sth natenive no sack, Nowhere is Brahi is i a Ae, The cello theme with aa _ a motion, is 1 displac "hos suk sce mae lar pains over signals by referring © # shimmering tremola violin-and/-flute tunesé poor d the I 2 ’ che listener to jyctor t0 shape an’ grasp. It was his at his owl of Renaisanee and Barc area aM is king for and ease with rhythm other than the four-square jt movement ofthe Second Symphony is sunny, but the sun shadowed. Now, in the Adagio, which is in B major, the shadows dd z 2 i phan’ ue sents of agitation that are background in the first movement ‘ ne 10 tHe fore. The horn picks up a fragment of the cello melody and od ant, 4 cot to begin 2 fugues though this is not developed far. A new theme, Teason, = so and given af element of caprice by its persistent panei enal spe meres diferent 5 create ee illson of faster ‘mote ‘a tid idea in flowing, conjunet motion continues in this vein. Against this various instruments in turn set agitated waves of sixteenth-notes so in she effect is one of ever faster motion, This is the background against which Brahms introduces the slowest music we have yet heard, the first movement's three-note motto, now imved as solemn warning by trombone and bassoon, answered by tuba and basses. Brahms does not choose to inject quicker notes here; he does, however, stit the blood by accelerating the rate at which the harmonies change, and it is with almost disorienting speed that in just one and a half. gut measures he travels across vast harmonic spaces to B major, so that the recapitulation can begin. Every detail, every relationship is reconsid- ered, and right up to those last melancholy descents of violins and clarinet that so beautifully set off the peaceful closing chords, the movement con- tinues as it began—something always beyond our power to predict every turn, perfectly convincing. te, The third movement is one of those leisurely. Hi i might have marked it “altvaterisch’—old-fashic vey soon, scurrying, quicker, itself yet another expansion bines the light-footed theme and adds