I. Allegro non troppo
II. Adagio
III. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace
This concerto was written, during the summer and the fall of 1878, at
Pörtschach on Lake Wörther in Carinthia for Joseph Joachim, dedicated to
him, and first played by him under the direction of the composer at a
Gewandhaus concert, Leipsic, on January 1, 1879.
Brahms, not confident of his ability to write with full intelligence for
the solo violin, was aided by Joachim, who it appears from the
correspondence between him and Brahms, gave advice inspired by his own
opinions concerning the violinist’s art. Richard Specht, in his
_Johannes Brahms_ (1928), says that Brahms agreed to scarcely anything
but “bow marks and fingering; otherwise he adhered to his text, and not
always to the advantage of his notation, which has often been misread by
violinists.” There was a dispute concerning the writing of “ties over
staccato dots, which has not the same meaning for the violinist as for
the pianist.” Joachim tried to explain this difference, but Brahms
obstinately refused to alter his notation, “which was afterwards duly
misinterpreted.”
The concerto was originally in four movements. It contained a _scherzo_
which was thrown overboard. Max Kalbeck, the biographer of Brahms,
thinks it highly probable that it found its way into the Second
pianoforte concerto. The _adagio_ was so thoroughly revised that it was
practically new. “The middle movements have gone,” Brahms wrote, “and of
course they were the best! But I have written a poor _adagio_ for it.”
Specht suggests that Brahms may have intended to save the rejected two
movements for a second violin concerto, “of which he made sketches
immediately after the first.”
Florence May in her life of Brahms quotes Dörffel with regard to the
first performance at Leipsic: “Joachim played with a love and devotion
which brought home to us in every bar the direct or indirect share he
has had in the work. As to the reception, the first movement was too new
to be distinctly appreciated by the audience, the second made
considerable way, the last aroused great enthusiasm.” Miss May adds that
the critic Bernsdorf was less unsympathetic than usual.
Kalbeck, a still more enthusiastic worshiper of Brahms than Miss May,
tells a different story. “The work was heard respectfully, but it did
not awaken a bit of enthusiasm. It seemed that Joachim had not
sufficiently studied the concerto or he was severely indisposed.” Brahms
conducted in a state of evident excitement. A comic incident came near
being disastrous. The composer stepped on the stage in gray street
trousers, for on account of a visit he had been hindered in making a
complete change of dress. Furthermore he forgot to fasten again the
unbuttoned suspenders, so that in consequence of his lively directing
his shirt showed between his trousers and waistcoat. “These
laughter-provoking trifles were not calculated for elevation of mood.”
In spite of Leipsic, Brahms soon recovered his spirits. He wrote to
Elisabet von Herzogenberg from Vienna in January: “My concert tour was a
real downhill affair after Leipsic; no more pleasure in it. Perhaps that
is a slight exaggeration, though, for friends and hospitality are not
everything on a concert tour. In some trifling ways it was even more
successful; the audiences were kinder and more alive. Joachim played my
piece more beautifully with every rehearsal, too, and the _cadenza_ went
so magnificently at our concert here that the people clapped right on
into my _coda_. But what is all that compared to the privilege of going
home to Humboldtstrasse and being pulled to pieces by three
womenkind—since you object to the word ‘females’?”
The composition is fairly orthodox in form. The three movements are
separate, and the traditional _tuttis_, _soli_, _cadenzas_, etc., are
pretty much as in the old-fashioned pieces of this kind; but in the
first movement the long solo _cadenza_ precedes the taking up of the
first theme by the violin. The modernity is in the prevailing spirit and
in the details. Furthermore, it is not a work for objective virtuoso
display.
The orchestra which Brahms requires in his symphonies is practically
the same as that which Beethoven used in the first three movements of
his Ninth: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons and
double bassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones,
kettledrums, and strings. This is the orchestration of Brahms’ First
symphony (the trombones being reserved for the final movement). The
Second omits the double bassoon but adds a tuba. The Third lists the
same orchestra as the First. The Fourth adds a piccolo, and in this
symphony the trombones are not heard until the opening chords of the
_finale_.
To the above basic orchestration Brahms added, in his _Tragic_
overture, a piccolo and tuba, and in his _Academic_ overture, a
piccolo, a third trumpet, tuba, bass drum, cymbals, and triangle. The
_Variations_ add piccolo and triangle but omit trombones. The
concertos follow the usual orchestration, with but two trombones in
the piano concertos—none in the violin concerto.—EDITOR.
ANTON
BRUCKNER
(Born at Ansfelden, in Upper Austria, September 4, 1824; died at
Vienna, October 11, 1896)
Both the admirers of Bruckner and those that dislike his music lay
stress on the fact that he was born a peasant and was essentially a
peasant to the day of his death, although the Rector Magnificus of the
University of Vienna bowed before him when he presented him with the
honorary degree of doctor. The detractors find in Bruckner’s peasanthood
his salient faults. The former say that by reason of the simplicity and
purity of his character Bruckner was as Paul caught up in the body or
out of the body, they cannot tell, to the third heaven, caught up into
paradise where he heard unspeakable words, which it was not lawful for
him to utter, but it was allowed him to hint at them in music. The
latter insist that his peasant naïveté is revealed in his interminable
chatter, in his vague wanderings, in his lack of continuity and cohesion
in the expression of thought.
The wretched game of politics is still played with Bruckner. Because he
worshipped Wagner and because Brahms, or rather Hanslick—who was to
Brahms both elephantier and thurifer—was opposed to Wagner, the
Wagnerites therefore pitted Bruckner against Brahms and proclaimed the
former the great successor to Beethoven in the field of absolute music.
As a matter of fact, Brahms was neither bitterly hostile toward Wagner
nor did he sneer at Bruckner. There was room for both Brahms and
Bruckner—except in Vienna and except in the shaggy breasts of
Wagnerites. Hanslick is dead, “the executioner of Bruckner,” as William
Ritter characterizes him, “the man who derided all the true glories of
the music of his time for Brahms’ sole benefit”; but Hanslick in his
lifetime did not kill Bruckner, who had friendly audiences in Vienna
before his death, whose fame has steadily grown.
In order to appreciate fully and yet with discrimination the
indisputable talent, the irregular, uncontrolled genius of Bruckner, it
is not necessary to inquire curiously into Bruckner’s humble origins, or
into the character of his father and mother. It was the theory of
Sainte-Beuve that the superior man is found, at least in part, in his
parents, and especially in his mother; but I doubt in this instance
whether an intimate acquaintance with Therese, the daughter of the
innkeeper and administrator Ferdinand Helm, at Neuzeng, would explain
the inconsistencies and contradictions in her son’s music. She was no
doubt a strong, lusty woman, and she bore her husband a dozen children.
As for Bruckner being a peasant, poor, now rude in behavior and speech,
and now almost cringing in his desire to be courteous, shabbily
educated, very few of the greatest composers have been born in rooms of
purple hangings, very few have been distinguished for the elegance of
their manners or the depth and breadth of their general learning.
The wonder is that Bruckner, the long-ignored, poor, humble school
teacher, grotesque in appearance, a peasant in speech and action, should
have had apocalyptic visions and spoken musically with the tongues of
angels.