CVCMF 2019 - Johannes Brahms String Quintet No. 1 in F, Op. 88. 1st movement
Вставка
- Опубліковано 28 січ 2025
- I Allegro non troppo ma con brio
Recorded in concert / live on August 17, 2019
Chandler Center for the Arts. Randolph, VT.
Violins: Joanna Maurer, Derek Ratzenboeck
Violas: Katarzyna Bryla-Weiss, Michael Roth
Cello: Peter Sanders
cvcmf.org
Audio/Video engineer: Peter Weitzner
String Quintet in F Major, Op. 88. . . . Johannes Brahms
(Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg; died April 3, 1897, in Vienna)
Brahms composed a string quintet twenty years before this one, and, discontented with it, destroyed it. Yet, he retained significant portions of it that he absorbed into the early Sonata for two Pianos, and then later, he resurrected other sections for inclusion in his piano quintet. During the 1860’s, he preferred to enjoy his freedom from the genres the masters of the past had preferred; thus, he eschewed the quintet and instead, he composed two string sextets. Finally, beginning with this quintet that he composed in early 1882, Brahms took up the string quintet genre again, succeeding in writing two string quintets with which he was content. In them both he doubled the viola part as Mozart had done, rather than adding a second cello as Schubert had chosen to do. The viola, Brahms often said, was his favorite instrument, and it allowed Brahms to create more textural richness and warmth than he felt he could create in his quartets.
Brahms, notorious for his dissatisfaction with his own completed works, found himself surprisingly pleased with this piece and wrote to his publisher, Simrock: “You have never before had such a beautiful work from me.” In a letter to his dear friend Clara Schumann, wife of the late Robert Schumann, in 1890, he wrote that this quintet was “one of my finest works.” The quintet was first performed in Ischl, his summer home, at a private gathering of friends. At that time, Brahms contended that the work had been composed by his friend, Ignaz Brüll, but later admitted that he had composed the first joyful movement in celebration of Brüll’s recent engagement. The work was premiered publicly in Frankfurt in late 1882.
For some unaccountable reason, the Quintet in F Major, Op. 88, a cheerful work full of the spirit of the spring season, now is not very familiar to audiences of Brahms’ major chamber music compositions. It has three movements rather than the usual four, and it begins Allegro non troppo ma con brio, with a carefree and amiable first movement in sonata form. Its especially lyrical first theme has been likened to an arrangement of a folk song. In the beginning, the second viola and the cello have a drone fifth, an intentional pastoral signifier, intended to indicate rustic bagpipes. A contrasting energetic, dotted rhythm transitional subject appears before the second leisurely and lyrical waltz-like theme, distinctive for its triplets, which later evolves into complicated rhythmic developments.
Brahms uses two small neo-Baroque piano dances, a sarabande and a gavotte that he composed but did not publish in the mid-1850’s, in the central movement. The critic Margaret Notley held that Brahms destroyed his own copies of the early sarabande and gavotte, and thus did not intend that posterity know he had based this movement on them, but in the 20th century, copies of the early dances that he gave to friends were found and corroborated the dances’ use. Combining the idea of the more serious slow movement with the idea of the traditional lighter third movement, scherzo, Brahms joins them, creating a complex movement with a rondo-like structure. The slower, introspective sections, Grave appassionato, which use all of the sections of the sarabande with its accented second beat over the course of the movement, repeat, and two faster, dancing interludes of a gavotte and a pastorale, Allegretto vivace, and Presto, alternate between them. The first of the two has a delicate and pastoral character. To add to the complexity of this movement, Brahms completes it in a different key from that in which he began.
The final movement, Allegro energico, has a fugal exposition, but Brahms soon abandons the fugue for more of a sonata form, and the movement becomes homophonic and turbulent. As models, he used his own Cello Sonata in E minor and also Beethoven’s finale in the Op. 59 Razumovsky Quartet No. 3. The second theme is lyrical and rhythmically flexible, and again complex counterpoint returns before the homophonic triumphs. Both subjects are brilliantly combined in a stretto, (compression). Listeners’ expectations are thwarted, but Brahms works all the complexities out with a refined sense of humor.
Program notes by Susan Halpern
I love the sound this group has. Perfect for Brahms! Bravo!
Thank you so much, the festival is very lucky to have such a wonderful hall to perform in. Chandler Center for the Arts in Randolph, VT is a very special place!
Pieknie!
Dziekuje Ci!
Beautiful playing! Bravo all! Thanks Kaya for introducing me to CVCMF, I will be following it from now on!
Anna, I am so glad you enjoyed to 1st movement! Slow mvmt is going public today!
Great performance!
So glad you enjoyed it, the slow movement is now up as well and the rest will follow soon. Thank you for listening and watching. . .