Concerto No. 1 in D Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 15

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833 in Hamburg and died in Vienna on April 3, 1897. One of the dominant composers of the late nineteenth century, Brahms greatly enriched the repertory for piano, organ, chamber music, chorus, and orchestra. His Piano Concerto no. 1 was composed between 1854 and 1859 and received its first performance in Hanover on January 22, 1859 with the composer as soloist and the orchestra led by Joseph Joachim. It is scored for solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

The first of Brahms’s two concertos for piano and orchestra was first performed by the composer with his friend Joseph Joachim conducting in Hanover on January 22, 1859. The work’s immense size and great intensity of expression reveal the composer’s original plan for much of its thematic material—a symphony. The Piano Concerto in D Minor is, indeed, symphonic in its proportions.

The work first began to emerge in 1854, in which year the young composer conceived of it as a sonata for two pianos. The next five years found the work and its composer undergoing profound changes—from both a personal and professional standpoint. These years were significant ones in Brahms’s complex relationship with Robert and Clara Schumann. In 1853, Robert Schumann had symbolically performed a “laying of hands” upon Brahms’s head by means of a lead article, “Neue Bahnen” (“New Paths”) published in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (an important periodical founded by the Schumann in 1834). The article points to the twenty-year-old Brahms as the true heir and custodian of the heritage of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann himself. Schumann’s public endorsement proved to be a mixed blessing for Brahms. What if he failed to measure up to the promise?

In February of 1854, Schumann attempted suicide by throwing himself into the Rhein, leading to two-and-a-half years of hospitalization for mental illness. During this disturbing period, Brahms remained loyal to Schumann, but also found himself becoming emotionally involved with Clara. All of these external biographical events surely played a role in Brahms’s emerging concepts for his concerto. The absorption of Beethoven’s models—the Ninth Symphony (also in D Minor) and Third Piano Concerto most especially—were no less important factors that influenced the final product.

The center of gravity of this concerto lies in its immense opening movement (Maestoso). Those familiar with the first movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony will recognize immediately the influence that mighty work is exerting here. The first movement of the concerto follows the traditional classical form for the first movement of such works, but in this case the themes are especially luxurious, expansive, and dramatic. The writing for the piano is technically challenging, replete with triple trills and sophisticated metrical patterns. Virtuosity, however, never overshadows the music’s expressive power. If the work may be said to have any flaws, it would be that its ideas are greater than the inexperienced composer’s ability to handle them, especially from the standpoint of orchestration.

The Adagio offers welcome relief from the torment of the first movement through its contrast of D Major to the previous D Minor, and its hymn-like themes, and orchestration calling for muted strings. The finale is an energetic and dramatic Rondo (Allegro non troppo), whose main theme is marked by its syncopated rhythms and boundless energy. Again the influence of Beethoven is apparent, as the astute listener will recognize that Brahms’s theme and its energetic writing for the left hand are closely modeled after the finale of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no. 3 in C Minor. One can surmise that Brahms was self-consciously attempting to validate Schumann’s prophecy.

Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 120 

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann was born June 8, 1810 in Zwickau (Saxony) and died July 29, 1856 at the Endenich asylum, near Bonn. The original version of his Symphony no. 4 was composed between May 29 and September 9, 1841. Ferdinand David conducted its first performance, at this time listed as his Symphony no. 2, on December 6 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig. Unsatisfied with it, Schumann withdrew the work and made substantial revisions in December of 1851. It was reintroduced to the public as his Symphony no. 4 in Düsseldorf on March 3, 1853, Schumann having composed his Symphonies nos. 2 and 3 in 1846 and 1850. It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.

Evidence from documents of 1840 reveal that Schumann and his new wife Clara longed for him to turn his attention away from works for piano to the composition of symphonies. Even earlier, Clara had confided in her diary her belief that Robert’s “imagination cannot find sufficient scope on the piano,” and that her “highest wish is that he should compose for orchestra--that is his field! May I succeed in bringing him to it.” We also know that in the fall of 1840 Robert was making “symphonic attempts.” These efforts reached their first fruition with Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 (“Spring’) by the end of February, 1841. Encouraged by its first performance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus at the end of March, Schumann sallied forth with new symphonic projects. An Overture in E (later to become the first part of his Overture, Scherzo, and Finale--a symphony in all but name) followed soon by a Fantasy in A Minor (to become the first movement of the Piano Concerto). Only ten days elapsed before Schumann began his Symphony in D Minor (actually his second, but published as his Symphony No. 4 in 1853), and the work was finished on September 9. Clearly, Schumann was leaping into the world of symphonies with both feet.

This initial flush of enthusiasm was followed by cautious introspection. The premiere of the D minor symphony met with mixed reviews, and Schumann promptly kept it from further performances and publication. Ten years later, after the composition of the Symphonies in C Major and E-flat Major (“Rhenish”), the composer, now the municipal music director of Düsseldorf, returned to the work, making relatively small changes regarding its content, but effecting large changes to its orchestration, mostly by way of reinforcing passages for strings with woodwind doublings. He also considered renaming the work a “Symphonic Fantasy,” no doubt in recognition of its freedom of form. Two years later, in 1853, Schumann made a few more revisions and issued the work as his Symphony No. 4. The title page of the autograph manuscript bears a dedication to Joseph Joachim, the violin prodigy whom Schumann had first met in Leipzig in 1843 when Joachim was only eleven, and who now had become a major figure in the German musical world.

Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 is a landmark composition for several reasons. Its two principal characteristics may be identified as unity and continuity. The first trait is seen in the ingenious way in which Schumann, almost effortlessly at times, creates new themes from the seeds of older ones, continuing the process throughout all four movements. While Schumann had models for such a developmental procedure, his process of bringing older ideas back in fresh contexts, such as the elaborate violin figure from the Romanze in the scherzo, is unprecedented. Continuity is created by allowing each movement to lead without pause into the next one (in the 1841 version, this occurred only between the scherzo and the finale). As impressive as all these techniques may be, audiences have always responded most immediately to this symphony’s drama, energy, and lyricism.