Brahms

Brahms’ Second Symphony: Pastoral Sunshine and Shadows

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When it came to writing his First Symphony, Johannes Brahms felt the anxiety of influence. The nine symphonies of Beethoven were so transformative that Brahms was haunted by the “footsteps of a giant” marching behind him. The situation was made worse by Robert Schumann’s enthusiastic public prediction that the young Brahms was destined to become “the heir to Beethoven.” He would carry forward the mantle of “absolute” music, as opposed to the …

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Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 in A Major: A Pathway to the Symphony

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As a musical form, the serenade implies light, entertaining music of the evening, set in a loose collection of movements which resembles a divertimento. The two youthful Serenades which Johannes Brahms wrote in his early twenties conform to this description. Yet they can also be heard as trial runs on the path to a symphony. It was Robert Schumann who heard “veiled symphonies” in Brahms’ early piano music, and who anticipated that …

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Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 2 in C Major: A Conversation Between Opposites

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Following the completion of his Piano Trio No. 2 in C Major, the often self-critical Johannes Brahms wrote to his publisher, “You have not yet had such a beautiful trio from me and very likely have not published its equal in the last ten years.” By the time Brahms started work on the Trio in 1880, he had become a well-established, mature composer. For two years, he set the score aside to …

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Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor: “The Sorrows of Young Werther”

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In 1875, Johannes Brahms sent the newly completed score for his C minor Piano Quartet to his publisher, Fritz Simrock, with the following message: On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form some conception of the music! I’ll send you my photograph for the purpose. Since you seem to like color printing, you can use blue coat, yellow breeches, and …

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Remembering Lars Vogt

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Lars Vogt, the renowned German pianist and conductor, passed away on Monday, September 5. He was 51. In March of 2021, Vogt was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in his throat and liver. Born in the town of Düren in the North Rhine-Westphalia region, Vogt rose to prominence after winning second prize at the 1990 Leeds International Piano Competition. He went on to perform as a soloist with the world’s greatest orchestras. He …

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Brahms’ Four Klavierstücke, Op. 119: Progressive Meditations

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Johannes Brahms wrote the Four Pieces for Piano (Klavierstücke), Op. 119 during the summer of 1893 in the Upper Austrian spa town of Bad Ischl. The brief character pieces are among the final, autumnal works of a composer who had announced his official retirement three years earlier. They inhabit an introspective world, at times filled with wistful nostalgia. The Klavierstücke, Op. 119 are preceded by three similar cycles (Op. 116, 117, and …

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Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major: Jacqueline du Pré and Daniel Barenboim

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During the summer of 1886, Johannes Brahms traveled from Vienna to the idyllic shores of Lake Thun in the Swiss Alps. The working vacation, sometimes called Brahms’ “chamber music summer,” resulted in an astonishing number of works, which included the Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major, Op. 99, the Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100, and the Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101. Brahms claimed that the landscape was “so full of …

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