Pitts Sanborn

“ The fourth symphony had never become a favorite work in Vienna. Received with reserve on its first performance, it had not since gained much more from the general public of the city than the respect sure to be accorded there to an important work by Brahms. Today, however, a storm of applause broke out at the end of the first movement, not to be quieted until the composer, coming to the front of the artists’ box in which he was seated, showed himself to the audience. ”

“ The eighteenth century was not over when Beethoven composed it, and he was still looking at music through the eyes of Haydn and Mozart, in spite of the fact that the student may readily discover Beethovenish characteristics that are not derived from either Haydn or Mozart and distinct intimations of the moods and manners of the nineteenth century to come. However, comedy itself is not all compact of sunshine and, as the German proverb has it, laughter and weeping dwell in the same bag. ”

“ The word “more” is important, for actually the symphony is in part a painting in tone, even if not for the greater part. Instead of keeping to the traditional four movements, this symphony rejoices in five, each carrying an identifying title. The first, “Allegro ma non troppo” in F major, explains itself thus: “The cheerful impressions excited on arriving in the country.” It begins immediately with this theme:
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which really holds the germ of the entire movement and, as Beethoven develops it, becomes as the whole countryside in Maytime bloom. ”

“ The listener is overpowered by the very lavishness of its beauty. In this symphony you feel Beethoven’s genius as something inexhaustible, glorying in its own titanic power, as of a high god ignoring lesser breeds, proud in the knowledge of invincible strength, unfettered, carefree, save where the Allegretto acknowledges a divine melancholy. ”

“ It is ticklish work trying to dive down into a composer’s 12 brain and surmise what special outside source his inspiration may have had; but one cannot help feeling that this whole wonderful episode may have been suggested to Brahms by the tones of the Alpine horn as it awakens the echoes from mountain after mountain on some of the high passes in the Bernese Oberland. This is certainly what the episode recalls to anyone who has ever heard those poetic tones and their echoes. A short, solemn, even ecclesiastical interruption by the trombones and bassoons is of more thematic importance. ”

“ JOHANNES BRAHMS
3 FOREWORD
This pamphlet about the most important compositions in which Brahms employs the orchestra, like its predecessor about Beethoven’s symphonies, makes no claim to originality and no secret of indebtedness to treatises that are open to us all. It is addressed to the radio audience of The Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, and its only object is to present in concise form some information concerning an inexhaustible subject that radio listeners may find of service. ”

“ Mozart had anticipated Beethoven in his “Linz” Symphony.
The third movement in name is the minuet usual in symphonies of the eighteenth century (“Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace,” in C major) , but in reality Beethoven was already looking forward to the scherzo (Italian, joke) with which he was presently to replace the minuet. This movement, then, is much less the stately dance in triple rhythm than a scherzo of generous proportions, rich in modulations and glowing color. ”

“ Heinrich Reimann finds in it the grandeur, the loftiness, the deep earnestness of tragic character, “Calamities, which an inexorable fate had imposed on him, leave the hero guilty; the tragic downfall atones for the guilt; this downfall, which by purifying the passions and awakening fear and pity works on the race at large, brings expiation and redemption to the hero himself.” ”

“ He spent a great deal of time in the lovely Viennese countryside, especially at Heiligenstadt, but here the country is no battlefield as it had been in the summer of 1802, the summer of the “Heiligenstadt Will”; it is rather the cheerful, sunlit province of Nature’s healing power.
Copious and quaint is the verbal testimony to Beethoven’s pleasure in Nature. A lodging had once been bespoken for him at the coppersmith’s at Baden (near Vienna) . When he saw there were no trees around the house, he exclaimed, “This house won’t do for me. I love a tree more than a man.” ”

“ Having launched a first symphony, Brahms composed a second within a year. However, he kept the writing of it so secret that nobody, we are told, knew anything about it till it was completed. Then, when he did divulge the secret, he was very demure. In September, 1877, he wrote to Dr. Billroth of Vienna, who was a patron of music as well as an eminent surgeon: “I do not know whether I have a pretty symphony; I must inquire of skilled persons.” He meant Clara Schumann, Otto Dessoff, and Ernest Frank. ”

“ The Mass is “unchurchly” in the highest degree. According to Bekker, Beethoven “breaks through the walls which divide the church from the world; his church extends to the limits of his vision; his altar is the heart of the universe, and he will suffer no dogmatic limitations.” Above the Kyrie the composer inscribed the words: “From the heart—may it go to the heart.” He intended the work “for the democratic concert hall rather than for polite social circles.”
The peak of the Missa Solemnis is undoubtedly the great fugue “Et vitam venturi” of the Credo. ”

“ In the three symphonies that successively precede the Sixth, Beethoven, as we have seen, is concerned with man as lover or as hero, for the spiritual conflict of the Fifth Symphony is no less heroic than are the exploits and lamentations of the Third. The Sixth Symphony, however, though quite as personal, treats of man from a totally different angle. ”

“ The first melody comes back in the ’cello and dominates the coda, against trills and arpeggios in the piano.
The finale (Allegretto grazioso, B flat major, 2-4) is a rondo on a grand scale, the first of whose three themes follows:
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Symphony in F Major, No. 3, Op. 90
Brahms finished the third of his symphonies at Wiesbaden in the summer of 1883. In October he returned to Vienna with the completed score, which he immediately took to Hans Richter, by that time the conductor of nearly everything in Vienna. Richter brought it out at a Philharmonic Concert on December 2. ”

“ The Scherzo (“Allegro vivace” in E-flat major) is an enormously energetic movement and is interrupted by a Trio, prophetic in its turn of the Ninth Symphony and including a particularly brilliant and difficult passage for the horns.
The theme of the concluding variations (“Allegro molto” in E flat major) Beethoven had previously employed in his ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus. This theme, simple as it appears, contains the germ of one of the most remarkable sets of variations ever put down on paper. ”

“ When the violin does come in, it is with a kind of breathless passage, on which there was some discussion between the composer and Joachim.
“We cannot fail to trace in the passages for solo the special points in which Joachim was without a rival, such as the handling of several parts and other things. The absence of the slightest trace of passages written for mere effect is as characteristic of the player as of the composer; and, like the other concertos, the work for violin is to be judged first and foremost as a composition, not as a means of display. ”

“ The sonatas for cello and piano, in F major and G minor, were composed as early as 1796 and performed in Berlin before the King of Prussia by Beethoven and the Court cellist, Duport. But the memorable cello sonatas of Beethoven’s are the one in A major, opus 69, one of his most lavish and magnificent works; and the C major and D major, opus 102. The first named, like the “Kreutzer” Sonata or the “Appassionata” of the piano series, is a creation that needs no defense and no far-fetched explanations. ”

“ The adjective “heroic” has often been associated with the Third Symphony of Brahms, as in its Italian form “eroica,” it is attached to the Third Symphony of Beethoven. Indeed, Richter, in a toast, christened this symphony, while it was still in manuscript, Brahms’s “Eroica.” Hanslick, though concurring with Richter, points out that the heroic quality is limited to the first and the last movements. This “heroic” element, however, “is without any warlike flavor ”

“ The scherzo, like the minuet, always includes a trio section. Listen in this trio to the delicious dialogue between wind instruments and strings and to the rousing crescendo that ends it just before the repetition of the minuet.
The Finale, in C major, opens with seven measures of Adagio devoted to the gradual release of a scale passage. So much accomplished, the music plunges into an “Allegro molto e vivace,” beginning with this sprightly theme which races along to the conclusion in a whirl of merriment and humorous sallies.
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Beethoven as a young man. ”

“ In spite of this dark prophecy, the symphony has long been one of the most popular, and it is now the established fashion to find in it not only magnitude and ruggedness, 11 but pathos, tenderness, and a profound humanity. ”

“ Beethoven had settled permanently in Vienna in the autumn of 1792 and the body of his work originated, of course, in the Austrian capital. We cannot, however, dismiss the compositions preceding the First Symphony as wholly negligible. The creations of this period are to a large extent relatively small in scale. There is a quantity of piano music largely in the form of variations, a number of songs and several arias, odds and ends of chamber music, dances, marches, and such. Some of the variations for piano and strings are based on melodies of Handel, Mozart, and a number of lesser lights. ”

“ There has long been discussion as to what tragedy this overture sets forth. It has been called “a tragedy not of actual happenings but of soul life. No hero, no event, suggested program music or any specific musical portrayal, although Hanslick says that if it be necessary to associate the overture with a particular tragedy, that tragedy is ‘Hamlet’.” The Hamletians identify the second theme, in F, with Ophelia and the episode in B-flat with Fortinbras. ”

“ Though not entitled Scherzo, the third movement, Allegro in F major, is one in fact. Here the human beings that people this countryside possess the picture. Beethoven labels the movement “Jolly gathering of country folk.” Its downright gayety brings in its train an amusing takeoff on a village band, especially the befuddled bassoon. The middle part of the movement, “In tempo d’allegro,” corresponding to the usual trio, has been construed by some as a quarrel among the dancers, by others as just a rude episode in the dance. ”

“ Brahms had a low opinion of him. He had even written while Dessoff was still in Vienna:
“Now Dessoff is absolutely not the right man for this, the only enviable post in Vienna. There are special reasons why he continues to beat time, but not a soul approves. Under him the orchestra has positively deteriorated.” Three days after the première at Karlsruhe the symphony was repeated at Mannheim, this time with the composer as conductor.
At first the C minor Symphony won little more than a success of esteem. Even Hanslick, Brahms’s Viennese prophet, was not wholly enthusiastic. ”