Shortly after Johannes Brahms met Robert and Clara Schumann in 1853, Robert Schumann published an article in an influential German music magazine announcing the arrival of a composer to watch. As Schumann wrote,
Many a new significant talent has appeared on the scene; a new force in music seemed imminent, as witnessed by many aspiring artists of recent times, even though their work is known to a rather narrow circle only. I felt that in following the progress of these select ones with the keenest of interest, that one day there must suddenly emerge the one who would be chosen to express the most exalted spirit of the times in an ideal manner, one who would not bring us mastery in gradual stages but who, like Minerva, would spring fully armed from the head of Jove. And he has arrived—a youth at whose cradle the graces and heroes of old stood guard. His name is Johannes Brahms.
Brahms was doubtless flattered by Schumann's characterization, but he was also concerned: "The public praise that you have deigned to bestow upon me will have so greatly increased the expectations of the musical world regarding my work that I do not know how I shall manage to do even approximate justice to it," he wrote to Schumann shortly after the article's publication. "You will readily understand that I am straining every nerve to bring as little disgrace as possible on your name."
Living up to these expectations—both those of his supporters and those he placed on himself—was an issue Brahms dealt with for his entire career, especially when writing symphonies. Brahms avoided the genre for years, composing several proto-symphonic works before finally producing his First Symphony—sometimes called “Beethoven’s Tenth”—at the ripe old age of 43. The symphony was worth the wait. As the critic Eduard Hanslick proclaimed, “What symphony of the last thirty or forty years is even remotely comparable with those of Brahms?”
While Brahms's First Symphony took nearly twenty years to compose, he produced his next three symphonies much more rapidly. Brahms crafted his Fourth Symphony during the summers of 1884 and 1885, which the 52-year-old composer spent on one of his typically rural retreats in the small Alpine town of Mürzzuschlag. While he was writing at a faster pace, the self-criticism that had paralyzed him earlier in his career still lurked in the background. After Brahms completed work on the first movement, he sent it to his dear friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, writing,
Might I venture to send you a piece of a piece of mine, and would you have time to look at it at and write me a word? On the whole, unfortunately, my pieces are more pleasant than I am and need less setting to rights! But the cherries never get ripe for eating in these parts, so don’t be afraid if you don’t like the taste of the thing. I’m not at all eager to write a bad No. 4.
To Brahms’s dismay, Elisabeth did not respond promptly. As he subsequently wrote to her husband, “My latest attack was evidently a complete failure—and a symphony too! But I do beg that your dear lady will not abuse her pretty talent for pretty letter-writing by inventing any friendly pretense for my benefit.” After a four-hand piano performance of the complete symphony for a small group of Brahms’s friends fell flat, the composer’s concern deepened. But it didn’t last for long. After the first rehearsal of the symphony for its premiere on October 25, 1885, conductor Hans von Bülow wrote, “Number Four is stupendous, quite original, individual, and rock like. Incomparable strength from start to finish.”
“Incomparable strength” is a wonderful description of the opening Allegro ma non troppo, dominated by interconnected webs of simple yet powerful themes that collide in glorious unisons. A somewhat stern and melancholy opening evolves into pensive, nostalgic warmth in the ensuing Andante moderato. The Allegro giocoso bursts onto the scene with effervescent good humor, moving through a series of moods but never departing from the opening joy for long. And the concluding Allegro energico e passionato, a series of variations on a simple eight-note theme, is a brilliant showcase of Brahms’s signature mix of intellectual rigor and overwhelming passion.
The Fourth Symphony was performed in Vienna on March 7, 1897, at the very last orchestra concert Brahms ever witnessed. Although the city had been slow to embrace the work, the reception was markedly different on this occasion. The death of Brahms’s close friend Clara Schumann in 1896 had a serious effect on his health, and he caught a chill at her burial that reportedly led to a resurgence of longstanding liver cancer. Perhaps as a tribute to the composer, the audience applauded for several minutes after each movement and gave Brahms a giant ovation at the end. As his biographer Florence May described,
As he stood there, shrunken in form, with lined countenance, strained expression, white hair hanging lank, and through the audience there was a feeling as of a stifled sob, for each knew he was saying farewell. Another outburst and yet another, one more acknowledgment from the master, and Brahms and Vienna had parted forever.
—Jennifer More, ©2023
