SYMPHONY NO. 1, IN C MINOR, OP. 68
I. Un poco sostenuto; allegro II. Andante sostenuto III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso IV. Adagio; allegro non troppo, ma con brio
Brahms’ First symphony contains remarkable pages, as those of the first movement, passages in the second, and the marvelously poetic introduction to the final allegro. Mr. Apthorp’s belief that this introductory episode may have been suggested to Brahms by the tones of the Alpine horn is not too fanciful, and this impression is made on all that have heard the horn whether in the Oberland or high up in the Canton Vaud. Brahms’ fondness for Switzerland is well known, and he had visited that country before the finale was performed. In this introductory adagio there is a lyric flight and at the same time an imaginative force in superb decoration that are seldom found in the purely orchestral compositions of Brahms.
Brahms was not in a hurry to write a symphony. He heeded not the wishes or demands of his friends, he was not disturbed by their impatience. As far back as 1854 Schumann wrote to Joachim: “But where is Johannes? Is he flying high or only under the flowers? Is he not yet ready to let drums and trumpets sound? He should always keep in mind the beginning of the Beethoven symphonies; he should try to make something like them. The beginning is the main thing; if only one makes a beginning, then the end comes of itself.”
Max Kalbeck, of Vienna, the author of a life of Brahms in 2,138 pages, is of the opinion that the beginning, or rather the germ, of the Symphony in C minor is to be dated 1855. In 1854 Brahms heard in Cologne for the first time Beethoven’s Ninth symphony. It impressed him greatly, so that he resolved to write a symphony in the same tonality. This symphony he never completed. The first two movements were later used for the Pianoforte concerto in D minor, and the third for “Behold all flesh” in A German Requiem.
A performance of Schumann’s Manfred also excited him when he was twenty-two. Kalbeck has much to say about the influence of these works and the tragedy in the Schumann family over Brahms, as the composer of the C minor symphony. The contents of the symphony, according to Kalbeck, portray the relationship between Brahms and Robert and Clara Schumann. The biographer finds significance in the first measures, poco sostenuto, that serve as introduction to the first allegro. It was Richard Grant White who said of the German commentator on Shakespeare that the deeper he dived the muddier he came up.
Just when Brahms began to make the first sketches of this symphony is not exactly known. He was in the habit, as a young man, of jotting down his musical thoughts when they occurred to him. Later he worked on several compositions at the same time and let them grow under his hand. There are instances where this growth was of very long duration. He destroyed the great majority of his sketches. The few that he did not destroy are, or were recently, in the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde at Vienna.
In 1862 Brahms showed his friend Albert Dietrich an early version of the first movement of the symphony. It was then without the introduction. The first movement was afterwards greatly changed. Walter Niemann quotes Brahms as saying that it was no laughing matter to write a symphony after Beethoven; “and again, after finishing the first movement of the First symphony, he admitted to his friend Levi: ‘I shall never compose a symphony! You have no conception of how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him [Beethoven] behind us.’”
The first movement opens with a short introduction, un poco sostenuto, C minor, 6-8, which leads without a pause into the first movement proper, allegro, C minor. Second movement, andante sostenuto, E major, 3-4. The place of the traditional scherzo is supplied by a movement, un poco allegretto e grazioso, A flat major, 2-4. The finale begins with an adagio, C minor, 4-4, in which there are hints of the themes of the allegro which follows. Here William Foster Apthorp should be quoted:
“With the thirtieth measure the tempo changes to più andante, and we come upon one of the most poetic episodes in all Brahms. Amid hushed, tremulous harmonies in the strings, the horn and afterward the flute pour forth an utterly original melody, the character of which ranges from passionate pleading to a sort of wild exultation, according to the instrument that plays it. The coloring is enriched by the solemn tones of the trombones, which appear for the first time in this movement. It is ticklish work trying to dive down into a composer’s 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. As the horn tones gradually die away, and the cloudlike harmonies in the strings sink lower and lower—like mist veiling the landscape—an impressive pause ushers in the allegro non troppo, ma con brio (in C major, 4-4 time). The introductory adagio has already given us mysterious hints at what is to come; and now there bursts forth in the strings the most joyous, exuberant Volkslied melody, a very Hymn to Joy, which in some of its phrases, as it were unconsciously and by sheer affinity of nature, flows into strains from the similar melody in the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony. One cannot call it plagiarism: it is two men saying the same thing.”
The symphony was produced at Carlsruhe by the Grand Duke’s orchestra on November 4, 1876. Dessoff conducted from manuscript. Brahms was present. There was a performance a few days later at Mannheim, where Brahms conducted.
Richard Specht,[18] stating that the First symphony made its way slowly—even Hanslick was far from being enthusiastic—attributes the fact largely to unsatisfactory interpretations.
After the first performance in Boston (by the Harvard Musical Association, January 3, 1878), John S. Dwight wrote in his Journal of Music that the total impression made on him was “as something depressing and unedifying, a work coldly elaborated, artificial; earnest to be sure, in some sense great, and far more satisfactory than any symphony by Raff, or any others of the day, which we have heard; but not to be mentioned in the same day with any symphony by Schumann, Mendelssohn, or the great one by Schubert, not to speak of Beethoven’s.... Our interest in it will increase, but we foresee the limit; and certainly it cannot be popular; it will not be loved like the dear masterpieces of genius.”