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These pages contain program notes written for Redwood
Symphony. You are free to use the information in your own program
notes. If you quote me directly, please attribute it. Thanks!
These notes were edited, amended, and otherwise
improved by Eric Kujawsky, Peter Stahl, and Doug Wyatt.
Barbara Heninger
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Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 2
The summer of 1877 was a pleasant time for Johannes Brahms. After fifteen
years of work and worry, constantly fearing comparison with Beethoven ("you
have no idea how it feels to hear behind you the tramp of a giant"), he had
premiered his first symphony in November of the previous year to favorable
reviews. This hurdle past, Brahms took the occasion that summer to vacation in
the village of Pörtschach, Austria, where "so many melodies fly
about," he wrote, "one must be careful not to tread on them."
Relaxed and inspired, Brahms knocked off his second symphony in record time
-- finishing most of it that summer and performing a four-hand piano version
with Ignaz Brüll for a few friends when he returned to Vienna at summer's end.
He continued polishing it through November, teasing the friends who had not
heard his piano version by describing it as a very somber, sad piece. To friend
and fellow pianist Clara Schumann (wife of his earliest champion, Robert
Schumann), he described the first movement as "quite elegiac in
character." To long-time correspondent Elisabeth von Herzogenberg he wrote
that the orchestra would have to play with mourning bands on their arms. Even
his publisher, Fritz Simrock, got the treatment: "The new Symphony is so
melancholy that you will not be able to bear it," Brahms told him.
Of course, the new symphony was nothing of the kind. In fact, it is probably
the sunniest of his symphonies, with a pastoral quality that surprised -- and
delighted -- his friends. Critics who had expected something in the vein of his
more sober first symphony in C minor (or who had heard about the "sad"
piece from Brahms's friends) were equally surprised by this D-major symphony.
One Viennese critic even complained that it was too lovely: "We require
from [Brahms] music that is something more than simply pretty."
Yet the second symphony is much more than merely pretty. The composer's deft
touch at orchestrating many textures from a relatively limited orchestral force
is in full evidence here: from soft and tender melodies, to sprightly dancing
tunes, to his trademark sonorous strings. Equally on display is his skill at
creating endless variations from just a few themes. The first movement, Allegro
non troppo, opens with a three-note motif in the low strings that develops
into themes both grand and tender. The Adagio non troppo that follows is
more introspective, yet never brooding. Listen for the syncopated second theme
played by the woodwinds over pizzicato cellos. A solo oboe introduces a
folk-like tune to open the third movement, Allegretto grazioso. This
melody, with its relatively stately yet dancing rhythm, is transformed into
energetic variations punctuated by a few breathless pauses. The finale, Allegro
con spirito, contrasts manic energy with a broad, hymn-like melody first
"sung" by the full strings. Even during the movement's slower
segments, there is an inevitable sense of motion. By the final trombone chord at
movement's end, as one critic writes, "one has the sense of having been on
a wild ride."
February 20, 2004
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