Johannes Brahms: Piano Works

Description

Johannes Brahms is the demonstration that, in art as happens frequently in life, looking backwards might be the best option for those wishing to innovate. The tension between a reverent cult for the past and a daring exploration of the future was constantly felt in Brahms’ personality and in his output. But, since his interest in the past is objective and undeniable, whilst his progressiveness is a matter for debate, Brahms has frequently been considered as a “conservative” musician. And this was also due to the polemics in which Brahms found himself, opposing him, as the champion of a “properly German” music, against the tendencies of Liszt and Wagner, who explored new ways in music composition eliciting the disdain of conservative critics. Yet, the fact that Brahms was appreciated by those conservative critics does not imply that he was a mere conservative in turn. True, he revered the past, but his works are far from representing a pure nostalgia or a static regret. (And, it should be said, at least Liszt was no less interested in Baroque music than Brahms himself; only, they looked at different aspects of the music of the past).
Unsurprisingly, Brahms was prized by musicians who shared his same humility and admiration for the great masters of the preceding century. Among them, first and foremost was the Schumann couple, to whom Brahms was introduced in his twentieth year. Both Robert and Clara Schumann were outstanding musicians, geniuses of their times; and both were quick to understand the genius of this young composer and pianist. Indeed, at the time of their first acquaintance, Brahms himself was still uncertain about which way would be best suited to his talent and aspirations: a career as a touring piano virtuoso, or rather an activity as a composer?
The same questions had been foundational also for Robert and Clara Schumann. Indeed, Robert had been wavering between three (if not four!) career options: pianist, composer, author, and lawyer (this last option was his least favourite one, but appreciated by his mother). Life chose for him when he ruined his hands due to a mechanism he had employed for increasing his fingers’ independence; juridic studies were soon abandoned, but literature remained a constant love in his life. Clara, instead, had been oriented to a career as a professional virtuoso pianist by her father since her earliest years. For her, compositional ability was a plus, an addition which embellished her skills as a pianist; soon, however, she realized that this was too limited a perspective, and that she wished to engage her talents in complex forms. She was encouraged, in this, by her future husband, Robert, but, nevertheless, the constant comparison with him did not prompt her to write as much as she could or would; she remained, throughout her long life, primarily a pianist (and wife, and mother) and only secondarily a composer.
Brahms arrived with his early works at their household. The portfolio he displayed contained some notable pieces for the piano: interestingly, works for solo piano are abundantly found at the outer ends of Brahms’ activity as a composer. His youthful works radiate energy, enthusiasm, and freshness of invention, and frequently transmit the impression of vigour and brilliance he displayed as a young man. His last works will be marked by nostalgia, tenderness, and melancholy.
Brahms’ Sonata No. 2 op. 2 was actually the first he composed, when he was not yet twenty years old. He wrote it in his hometown of Hamburg, and here already we observe Brahms’ interest in the music and culture of the past. Its second movement, in fact, is in the form of a theme with variations, based on a song of the medieval Minnesänger repertoire (Mir ist leide by Kraft von Toggenburg).
This Sonata contributed to establish Brahms’ standing with the Schumann couple, to whom he played it in the summer of 1853. Robert, who always was a generous and unselfish musician, and one ready to acknowledge the value of others, was enthused by the young Northerner, and wrote a famous piece about him in the journal he had founded, the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. The extraordinary promotion Schumann granted him by this magnanimous gesture was fundamental for Brahms, whose personality was soon known by many in the world of music.
Throughout his whole life, Brahms would be a champion of self-censorship, and he only published what he considered as really excellent. He was also careful in structuring his publication strategies, and he realized that the label of “op. 1” should be reserved for an absolute masterpiece among the works he had written until then. He considered the second Sonata he had written as more mature than the first, and therefore he purposefully misnumbered them for publication: thus, the Sonata recorded in this Da Vinci Classics CD is actually the first Brahms composed in his late teens.
It is, nevertheless, a true masterpiece, in which the multifaceted Romantic soul of the composer is fully revealed. It is a fiery soul, which can be ecstatic in front of the sublime, as the first movement suggests, with its generous outpourings of melody and of solemn gestures. It is also a contemplative soul, as the second movement fully manifests. It is humorous (a trait Schumann would have certainly appreciated), as in the brisk Scherzo. It is cyclical, revealing a concept of time which is open to eternity, and in which ideas found at the Sonata’s beginning are recalled at its closing.
Schumann advised Brahms to propose his youthful masterpieces to the most important publisher of the era, Breitkopf & Härtel: Schumann’s own endorsement (both public, on the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, and private, in a cover letter) certainly impressed the publisher, who accepted them.
Brahms dedicated this Sonata to Clara Schumann, as a token of gratitude for the warm welcome he had enjoyed in their household (of which he would practically become a member in the following years), and as a gesture expressing his admiration and his affection for her, to whom he would remain tenderly, but platonically, attached, until the end of her life.
A gaze to the past also characterizes Brahms’ Four Ballads, op. 10, which are inspired by a traditional Scottish ballad, “Edward”, which had been printed in translation in a collection by Johann Gottfried Herder (Stimmen der Völker). Brahms wrote these four Ballads when he was 21, in 1854, in Düsseldorf. Under many aspects, they seem to build an ideal bridge between his youthful piano works and those of his late output. This is seen, for example, in the absence of spectacular virtuosity (which does not imply technical easiness… just the lack of public display of the difficulty), and in the narrative tone they adopt, in conformity to their literary inspiration.
The most programmatic Ballad is the first, a tripartite piece illustrating, in its first section, Edward’s dramatic dialogue with his mother; the second illustrates Edward’s killing of his father; the third and last closes the piece with Edward’s curse and his mother’s lament. The compositional techniques adopted by Brahms include his signature rhythmic landmark, the opposition between ternary and binary rhythm. All these Ballads, beyond their immediate narrative content, share the atmosphere, an epic, solemn, but also fairy-tale dimension. The Romantics had an innate affinity with the fantastic aspect of the Middle Ages and its capability to evoke timeless stories.
It is a much nearer past the one to which the Handel-Variations op. 24 refer. Written in 1861, they belong in Brahms’ output of his late twenties, and reveal his continuing, and increasing interest in the form of the theme with variations. This form will eventually constitute a memorable masterpiece in the Passecaille of his Fourth Symphony. Indeed, the Passecaille is (like the Chaconne) a series of variations on a bass line, whilst many Classical and Romantic variations cycles are built on the upper melody of the theme. Variations on the soprano line are much more easily recognizable and immediately enjoyable; variations on a bass are, on the one hand, more difficult to create, but on the other allow for greater variety. Thus, even though this magnificent cycle has a very extensive duration, it does not give an impression of repetitiveness or stasis, but rather of ever-increasing variety, in the fashion of a kaleidoscope whose multicoloured elements constantly combine with each other to create a wonderful spectacle.
The theme is excerpted from a keyboard suite by Handel, and Brahms skillfully elaborates it, getting further and further away from the Baroque atmosphere of his musical ancestor. The first Variations could almost have been written by Handel himself, but, as the music progresses, new worlds open up under the pianist’s fingers. Brahms, just as Bach (with the Goldberg Variations) and Beethoven (with the Diabelli Variations) had done, inserts character pieces here and there, including some “fake Baroque” variations, or evocations of gipsy music, of hunting tones and so on. The variations are frequently grouped by twos and threes, and a similar idea is developed over the course of several pieces (similar to what happens with Beethoven’s C-minor Variations). The cycle is masterfully concluded with a majestic Fugue, in which Handel’s harpsichord (the instrument on which the original Suite was probably played) is transformed into a Romantic organ. In this evocation of organ sounds on the piano, Brahms is one of the pioneers of what will become the late-Romantic tradition of transcribing organ music for the piano (Liszt, Tausig, and of course Busoni will follow him). This extensive and solemn Fugue is, in the manner of the ancient masters, the theme’s true apotheosis, and Brahms’ most exquisite homage to his musical forebear. This masterpiece was written for Clara Schumann, on her forty-second birthday, and she was enthused over its beauty, although she found the cycle physically challenging.
Together, these pieces demonstrate that, as Verdi once put it, “going back to the old is a progress”. Arnold Schoenberg will be the first to understand that this applies beautifully to Brahms himself, expressing his intuition in the epoch-making article titled “Brahms the progressive”.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2023