Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 was born out of a deep collaborative friendship.
Brahms composed the monumental work during the summer of 1878, a year after completing his Second Symphony, in the southern Austrian lakeside town of Pörtschach am Wörthersee. The Concerto was dedicated to the Hungarian-born violinist, Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), who actively advised the composer on technical aspects of the violin in relation to the score.
Joachim, Brahms’ senior by just two years, represented a new breed of violin virtuoso. Previous violinists, such as Tartini, Viotti, Paganini, and Spohr, performed repertoire consisting almost exclusively of their own compositions, each of which was tailored to the artist’s individual style. In contrast, “Joachim inaugurated a new era—that of the art of interpretation.” (Boris Schwarz, Great Masters of the Violin) At the age of 12, Joachim made his London debut, performing Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Mendelssohn leading the orchestra. Although Joachim composed music for the violin, he broke ground as a champion of the masterworks of his contemporaries, including Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms.
Brahms’ Violin Concerto rises to symphonic scale, fully integrating the solo violin and orchestra as equals. The violin becomes a heroic protagonist in a vast drama which encompasses ferocity, mystery, tenderness, and pastoral beauty. With this weighty music, Brahms seems to be presenting a worthy successor to Beethoven’s Concerto, set in the same key of D major. Shortly after the premiere, the conductor Josef Hellmesberger quipped that it was “a concerto not for, but against the violin.” Polish virtuoso Henryk Wieniawski deemed it “unplayable,” while Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate commented, “I don’t deny that it’s fairly good music, but does anyone imagine […] that I’m going to stand on the rostrum, violin in hand, and listen to the oboe playing the only tune in the adagio?”
The first movement (Allegro non troppo) begins with the main theme, heard as a hushed, wandering line, outlining D major in unadorned octaves. The second phrase begins with the entrance of the oboe, and a sudden jolting shift to C major. We get a sense of searching motivic development, as if the music is composing itself in real time. Gradually, everything comes into focus, with a single aspiring line triumphantly finding its harmonic footing. The solo violin enters in a blaze of snarling ferocity. As the music continues, the soul of the instrument is revealed, as it moves from heroic struggle to celestial sweetness, floating into the highest registers. The final notes of the cadenza deliver us into a serene, shimmering coda in which time seems to halt, temporarily.
The second movement (Adagio) moves to the pastoral key of F major, with a gentle, longing statement by the solo oboe, accompanied by winds. At first, Brahms imagined the Concerto as a four movement work with a scherzo. In October of 1878, with his usual self-deprecating humor, Brahms wrote to Joachim to inform him that “the middle movements have fallen out; naturally they were the best! I have replaced them with a poor adagio.”
Opening with the solo violin’s zesty double stops, the final movement (Allegro giocoso) is a boisterous, jubilant Hungarian dance. In a way similar to the dancelike rondo of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, there is a lightness of spirit that whisks us beyond the dramatic weight of the preceding movements. Following a cadenza, the coda shifts suddenly from 2/4 to 6/8 time. In the final bars, the motion dissipates. The solo violin pauses for a brief moment of repose before the final cadence.
A Recording by Christian Tetzlaff
This concert recording, released in 2022, features German violinist, Christian Tetzlaff, for whom the music of Brahms has been “a lifelong focus and a source of solace and companionship.” Having first learned the Concerto at the age of 16, Tetzlaff has performed it more than 200 times, with a sense of deepening understanding. He chooses to play Joachim’s cadenzas, commenting,
For me, this cadenza is part of the piece. Whereas with many other cadenzas, I find them – as well as they might be composed, they are sometimes just virtuoso vehicles, or a display of compositional artistry. Joachim’s cadenzas seem to be an organic part of the piece. I love this.
This album follows a 2008 studio recording of the Brahms Concerto with Thomas Dausgaard and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Tetzlaff plays on a violin made in 2000 by German luthier Stefan-Peter Greiner.
I. Allegro non troppo:
II. Adagio:
III. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace:
Recordings
- Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77, Christian Tetzlaff, Robin Ticciati, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin Chandos.net
Featured Image: Photograph by Giorgia Bertazzi