As a conscientious student of music history, Brahms took his time before presenting a full symphony to the public. His first symphony, a serious piece that articulates a classic Beethovenian narrative trajectory from C minor to C major, premiered in 1876 when he was forty-three years old. Certainly, he had attempted to draft a symphony before, but those early attempts ultimately appeared in the form of the first piano concerto and the German Requiem as well as two serenades for strings and winds. Following the success of the rather self-conscious first symphony, however, he quickly produced the second symphony in the summer of 1877.
The piece is more light-hearted in tone than the first, with an almost pastoral quality to its opening movement. That said, Brahms noted this symphony includes “the necessary darkness,” which you may hear in the funereal sounds of the lower brass and timpani during the introduction, and later in the dramatic developmental passages in the middle of the movement. Brahms “the academic” may also be heard here: the very opening three-note motive (D-C#-D) in the lower strings recurs throughout and helps form the basis of later melodies, as did the horn’s first three notes in the second piano concerto. The unfolding melodies also feature the cellos and the woodwinds. The second movement, marked Adagio non troppo (“slow not too much” – a typical noncommittal Brahmsian tempo indication), is more pensive in nature, and close listeners will be rewarded if they can pay attention to both melody and accompaniment. For example, the opening features cellos and bassoons in contrary motion: as the cello line descends, the bassoon line rises. This is exactly the kind of detailed part-writing that Brahms studied so thoroughly, and it is in the harmonic clash of note-against-note where much of the drama lies.
The third movement is marked Allegretto grazioso (Quasi Andantino), an atypical noncommittal tempo indication from Brahms, which our own director Emanuele Andrizzi offered in translation as “graciously fast but rather calm.” Brahms refused to use metronomes to indicate precise tempos as he wanted to allow performers interpretive freedom, and many of his verbal markings are similarly vague. Whatever the speed of this movement, Brahms indulges here in one of his favorite musical games: the play of rhythm and meter. You’ll hear the music switch between pulses of three and two, with syncopations and other displaced accents as well. Try tapping along! The finale is the most ebullient movement, with melodies churning around like a wild carousel. After all, Brahms lived in Vienna, home to one of Europe’s oldest amusement parks, the Prater, which he enjoyed visiting. Brahms still can’t resist his academic jokes, and he gives the lower strings some of the opening melody upside-down later in this movement. In this sense, it’s a way to return full circle to the musical hijinks with which we began this spring concert.