Unlike Beethoven, Johannes Brahms allowed not a trace of his compositional process to be revealed to the public. Any sketches, drafts or pre-orchestrations were consigned to flame, along with early works the composer considered inferior. We know, therefore, virtually nothing about the genesis of the Symphony No. 3, only that it was composed during the summer of 1883 in the German town of Wiesbaden, some six years after the Second Symphony. There has been some discussion about one of the composer’s many infatuations, this time with a talented young contralto, Hermine Spies, with whom the fifty-year-old composer kept up an intense – but almost certainly chaste – relationship for several years. He apparently spent the fruitful summer in Wiesbaden because of her, but, beyond a number of vocal works, the extent of her influence on his creative output of that period is impossible to ascertain.

The Symphony, premiered on November 9, 1883 in Vienna. It was a stupendous success, far greater than anything Brahms had ever experienced. Apparently, he was more than a little unnerved by the acclaim, remarking, “The reputation [it] has acquired makes me want to cancel all my engagements.”

The Third is the shortest of Brahms’s symphonies, containing thematic interrelationships among the movements that to some degree determine its compact structure. It is unusual also in the fact that three of its movements are in sonata form, in the absence of a true scherzo/trio and in the general uniformity of tempi of all but the final movement.

One cannot discuss the Symphony without spending some time on the dramatic opening measures whose major-minor ambiguity pervades the entire work. Brahms’s biographer, Jan Swafford, notes the strong similarity, especially in rhythm, between the theme and the opening theme of Schumann’s Symphony No. 3. Given the close personal relationship between the two composers during Brahms’s youth, Swafford considers the thematic relationship as probably deliberate.

In the second movement Andante, Brahms continues to play with the major-minor ambiguity. In the recapitulation, he omits repeating the second theme altogether, saving it for the Symphony’s final movement.

The third movement was the “hit” of the entire Symphony and was frequently encored at performances in Brahms’s time, when such concert etiquette as applause between movements and internal encores were common. Its triple meter and slightly contrasting middle section are all that remain of the traditional classical minuet or scherzo and trio. More of a romanza, it opens with a wistful, almost longing theme, replete with sighing figures.

In the Classical symphony, the first movement is nearly always the most substantial, raising “issues” that are finally resolved in an exciting finale. After Beethoven’s Ninth, composers frequently appended to the finale a triumphant coda, as did Brahms in his First Symphony.

The Third Symphony exemplifies a slightly different take on the custom. Certainly, the darkest and most tempestuous movement in the Symphony, the finale begins clearly in  minor, accentuating the major/minor ambiguity that Brahms had set up from the start. Immediately after the fluid opening theme, Brahms brings back in slightly altered form the second theme from the second movement that he had omitted in the recapitulation. But this symphony is not a Beethoven’s Ninth nor even a Brahms’s First: rather than concluding in a resounding climax, the darkness and ambiguity dissolve gently in the final measures.

Program notes by:

Joseph & Elizabeth Kahn

Wordpros@mindspring.com

www.wordprosmusic.com