Classical Works Spotlight #349--Brahms 4

[erik]

The fourth and final symphony of Johannes Brahms, one that experiments with classical, Baroque, and even the waltz form, is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight.

Brahms: SYMPHONY NO. 4 IN E MINOR, OP. 98

Composed during 1884 and 1885 in his summer home in Murzzuschlag, the Fourth Symphony represents the culmination of Johannes Brahms’ work as a symphonic composer. Given how much he labored early on in his life with the thought of creating even one symphony as the shadow of Beethoven’s achievements still haunted him, that he should have composed even as many as four. And the E Minor Fourth Symphony is different in tone from its three predecessors. It is a very somber work whose tempo in the opening movement somewhat represents an Austrian landler or even a waltz (Brahms was a very close friend of the era’s reigning waltz master Johann Strauss II) while still retaining the symphonic structure bequeathed to him by Beethoven. The second movement (Andante Moderato) is marked by a melancholic and elegiac quality, in the unusual key of E Major, but which ends in quiet contemplation (unlike the other three movements of the work, whose endings are much more dramatic). The third movement, in C Major, is the only actual true scherzo of any of his symphonies (though it is not marked that way in the score); and its scoring is enhanced with a piccolo, a double bassoon, a third timpani, and a triangle. The final movement, meanwhile, returns to the somber subject matter of the opening movement, in the home key of E Minor, with its quasi-waltz form, but also has the structure of the form of the Passacaglia, which was a very popular form that Johann Sebastian Bach frequently used in his keyboard works. Although not very many reviewers of the time (including Hugo Wolf, a vocal Brahms opponent, and even Eduard van Hanslick, usually a fervent Brahms supporter) really had many good things to say, the work’s premiere under the composer’s direction in Meiningen on October 25, 1885 was a success with audiences. It would be his second-to-last orchestral work, with only the A Minor Double Concerto (for violin, cello, and orchestra) to follow, though some of his non-orchestral keyboard works would be orchestrated by others in the 20th century, including the G Minor Piano Quartet (orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg), and the Variations and Fugue On A Theme Of Handel (orchestrated by the English composer Edmund Rubbra in 1938).



New York Philharmonic Orchestra/LEONARD BERNSTEIN (CBS)

Included:
ACADEMIC FESTIVAL OVERTURE, OP. 80
TRAGIC OVERTURE, OP. 81

[egoodstein]

A wonderful work, sometimes my favorite Brahms symphony, if I like the other three very much too. As in much of his later chamber work, and even lieder and solo piano
works, his own 'take' on introspection and somber tonal qualities. Here, also interesting how he 'echos' and extends Scherzo form from Beethoven (who sort of 'invented' or at least developed fully 'Scherzo' as a symphonic form),  in the Allegro Giocoso movement . And the use of waltz and 'classical' Passacaglia is inventive, distinctive and expressive as you say. There's an intriguing balance of reserve/somber tones and yet more 'sprightly' aspects. I like this recording (if I admit long time since I heard), also several others, including Szell/Cleveland Orch.'s, Klieber's with Vienna Philharmonic Orch., and even the very different, but intriguing recent brisk/'neo-classical' version on period instruments by John Eliot Gardiner. Brahms's music 'confronts' the classical and Romantic traditions, and finds a way to write his own chapter in that tradition. 

[erik]

I think by his own admission that Brahms was not a flaming radical like, say Liszt or Wagner; and the fact that he managed to stay relevant in the traditional forms he chose to work in (symphonies; concertos; concert overtures, etc.) while remaining popular during and after his lifetime says a lot about his staying power. He tried to avoid overtly large gestures in his symphonies (in contrast to Bruckner) and extreme bombast (as opposed to Tchaikovsky), and it worked. The Fourth is genuinely considered to be his most melancholic for a lot of good reasons, written as it was in the autumn of his years, though he lived another twelve years). He felt he had said all he really had to say in terms of the symphonic form, and he went out well (IMHO).