SYMPHONY, NO. 3, IN F MAJOR, OP. 90
I. Allegro con brio II. Andante III. Poco allegretto IV. Allegro
Some justly prefer the Symphony in F major to the other three. It has no pages equal in imagination to the wonderful introduction to the finale of the First; it has nothing in it like the architectural grandeur of the Fourth’s finale; but, as a whole, it is the most poetic of the four. Brahms wrote nothing more commanding than the opening of the first movement. Page after page thereafter might be cited in praise. And in this symphony the natural austerity of the composer is mellowed, his melancholy, as in the third movement, is tender, wistful, not pessimistic.
Brahms worked on his Third symphony in 1882, and in the summer of 1883 he completed it.
The first performance of the Third symphony was at a Philharmonic concert in Vienna, December 2, 1883. Hans Richter conducted. Brahms feared for the performance, although Richter had conducted four rehearsals. He wrote to Bülow that at these rehearsals he missed the Forum Romanum (the theater scene which in Meiningen served as a concert hall for rehearsals), and would not be wholly comfortable until the public gave unqualified approval. Max Kalbeck states that at the first performance in Vienna a crowd of the Wagner-Bruckner ecclesia militans stood in the pit to make a hostile demonstration, and there was hissing after the applause following each movement had died away; but the general public was so appreciative that the hissing was drowned and enthusiasm was at its height. Arthur Faber came near fighting a duel with an inciter of the Skandal sitting behind him, but forgot the disagreeable incident at the supper given by him in honor of the production of the symphony, with Dr. Billroth, Simrock, Goldmark, Dvořák, Brüll, Hellmesberger, Richter, Hanslick, among the guests. At this concert Franz Ondricek played the new violin concerto of Dvořák.
It is said that various periodicals asserted that this symphony was by far the best of Brahms’ compositions. This greatly annoyed the composer, especially as it raised expectations which he thought could not be fulfilled. Brahms sent the manuscript to Joachim in Berlin and asked him to conduct the second performance where or at what time he liked. For a year or more the friendship between the two had been clouded, for Brahms had sided with Mrs. Joachim in the domestic dispute, or at least he had preserved his accustomed intimacy with her, and Joachim had resented this. The second performance, led by Joachim, was at Berlin, January 4, 1884. Dr. Franz Wüllner was then the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Subscription Concerts. Brahms had promised him in the summer before the honor of conducting this symphony in Berlin for the first time. Joachim insisted that he should be the conductor. Churlish in the matter, he persuaded Brahms to break his promise to Wüllner by saying that he would play Brahms’ violin concerto under the composer’s direction if Brahms would allow him to conduct the symphony. Brahms then begged Wüllner to make the sacrifice. Joachim therefore conducted it at an Academy Concert, but Brahms was not present; he came about a fortnight later to Wüllner’s first subscription concert, and then conducted the symphony and played his pianoforte concerto in D minor. The writer of these notes was at this concert. The symphony was applauded enthusiastically, but Brahms was almost as incompetent a conductor as Joachim. (His pianoforte playing in 1884 on that occasion was muddy and noisy.) Brahms conducted the symphony at Wiesbaden on January 18, 1884. The copyright of the manuscript was sold to the publisher Simrock, of Berlin, for 36,000 marks ($9,000) and a percentage on sums realized by performances.
Hans Richter in a toast christened this symphony when it was still in manuscript, the “Eroica.” Hanslick remarked concerning this: “Truly, if Brahms’ First symphony in C minor is characterized as the ‘Pathetic’ or the ‘Appassionata’ and the second in D major as the ‘Pastoral,’ the new symphony in F major may be appropriately called his ‘Eroica’”; yet Hanslick took care to add that the key word was not wholly to the point, for only the first movement and the finale are of heroic character. This Third symphony, he says, is indeed a new one. “It repeats neither the poignant song of Fate of the first, nor the joyful Idyl of the second; its fundamental note is proud strength that rejoices in deeds. The heroic element is without any warlike flavor; it leads to no tragic action, such as the Funeral March in Beethoven’s Eroica. It recalls in its musical character the healthy and full vigor of Beethoven’s second period, and nowhere the singularities of his last period; and every now and then in passages quivers the romantic twilight of Schumann and Mendelssohn.”
Max Kalbeck thinks that the statue of Germania near Rüdesheim inspired Brahms to write this symphony.[19] Joachim found Hero and Leander in the finale! He associated the second motive in C major with the bold swimmer breasting the waves. Clara Schumann entitled the symphony a “Forest Idyl” and sketched a programme for it.
The first movement, allegro con brio, in F major, 6-4, opens with three introductory chords (horns, trumpets, wood-wind), the upper voice of which, F, A flat, F, presents a short theme that is an emblematic figure, or device, which recurs significantly throughout the movement. Although it is not one of the regular themes, it plays a dominating part. Some find in a following cross-relation—A flat of the bass against the preceding A natural of the first theme, the “Keynote to some occult dramatic signification.” Enharmonic modulation leads to A major, the tonality of the second theme. There is first a slight reminiscence of the “Venusberg” scene in Tannhäuser—“Naht euch dem Strande!” Dr. Hugo Riemann goes so far as to say that Brahms may have thus paid a tribute to Wagner, who died in the period of the composition of this symphony. The second theme is of a graceful character, but of compressed form, in strong contrast with the broad and sweeping first theme. The second movement, andante in C major, 4-4, opens with a hymnlike passage, which in the first three chords reminds some persons of the “Prayer” in Zampa. The third movement is a poco allegretto, C minor, 3-8, a romantic substitute for the traditional scherzo. Finale, allegro, in F minor, 2-2. At the end the strings in tremolo bring the original first theme of the first movement, “the ghost” of this first theme, as Apthorp called it, over sustained harmonies in the wind instruments.