The second capriccio is the familiar one in B minor, played staccato throughout, and a piquant and almost agreeable piano composition. Do you know that I never hear it without being reminded of the fourth number in Schumann’s Die Davidsbündler, which is also in B minor. It is as if Brahms took that syncopated page and built over it his capriccio, with its capricious staccati and ingenious harmonic changes. Of course the resemblance vanishes after the third bar; it is really more spiritual than actual.
Interesting it is to follow the permutations of the composer. On page nine there is a refreshing and perfectly sane modulation from E major to F, and the return to the subject is cleverly managed. The frisky yet somewhat saturnine character is maintained to the end, and the doubling up on page twelve is very effective. A genuine piano piece is this B minor capriccio.
We now come to the lovely A flat intermezzo, which occasionally strays in an uneasy fashion on the concert stage. A few pianists play this tender wreath of moonbeams and love, but either too slow or too fast. To play Brahms sentimentally is to slay Brahms; yet this charming intermezzo in A flat must not be taken too slow. It exhales an odor of purity, of peace, that is not quite untroubled, and nothing sweeter can be imagined than the dolce on the first page that follows a ritenuto and introduces a break in the melody. Its two pages are the two pages of a masterpiece. They give us Brahms at his best and in his most lovable mood.
The next intermezzo is more shy and more diffident. Marked allegretto grazioso, its graciousness is veiled by a hesitating reserve which further on becomes almost painful. Mark where the double notes begin, mark the progression and its dark downward inflection. But it is a beautiful bit of writing, with some of the characteristics of a nocturne, but full of questionings, full of enigmatic pain. Brahms, too, suffered severely from Weltschmerz.
The second book of op. 76 is a distinct advance in mastery of material, in the expression and realization of moods almost too recondite and remote. The C sharp minor capriccio which begins the book is more lengthy and more ambitious than any in the work. It is an agitated, passionate composition, driving through darkness and storm without relief, until a silent poco tranquillo is reached; but the point of repose is soon abandoned and the turmoil begins anew and the ending is full of gloom and fierceness. I catch Schumann in spots; for example, near the end of the second line on the second page, when a rank modulation stares you in the face, but with the eyes of Robert the Fantastic. The tempest-like character of the capriccio is marked. It is a true soul-storm in which the spirit, buffeted and drenched by the wind and wave of adversity, is almost subdued; but the harsh and haughty coda shows indomitable courage at the last. It is a powerful companion picture for Schumann’s Aufschwung.
Then follow in the next intermezzo perfect calm, perfect repose of mind and body. In the slow moving triplets Brahms indicates those curves of quiet that enfold us when we are at one with ourselves, with nature. Indescribably lovely is the first page of this intermezzo. Even the section in F sharp minor is gracious and without a hint of the tragic. The piece ends in A major stillness.
The next number is also an intermezzo, and with my absurd feeling for similarities I hear in it an echo of Chopin’s F minor nocturne. The resemblance is not as rhythmic as it is melodic. For gray days this intermezzo was written; go play it when the sun is holding high and heated revelry in the heavens and you will feel, rather than see, a shadow cross your inner vision. It is our pessimistic Brahms again, and the mood for the moment is almost one of mild self-torture. A nocturne in gray, not too profound, too poignant, rather a note of melancholy is sounded, a thin edge of light that stipples the gloom with really more doubt than despair.
The eighth and last number of the opus is a capriccio, a genuine, whirling, fantastic capriccio. It is not easy to play; needing light, sure fingers and a light, gay spirit. In the second section we encounter a melody of the later Brahms type. It delights in seizing remote keys, or rather contiguous keys, that are widely disparate in relationship and forcing them to consort, the result being perversely novel and sometimes startling. Some of the modulatory work is very interesting, particularly the enharmonic progressions at the bottom of the second page. The capriccio fitly closes a volume of original and suggestive piano music, but music that is sealed to the amateur searching for showy or mere mellifluous effects. After you have played Bach and Beethoven, after you have exhausted—if such a thing is possible—Chopin and Schumann, you will perhaps grasp the involuted and poetical music contained in op. 76 of Brahms.
At last we reach op. 79, the two rhapsodies much talked of, much wrangled over and seldom played.
The first rhapsody is in B minor and is as unrhapsodic as you can well imagine. It is drastic, knotty, full of insoluble ideas, the melodic contour far from melting and indeed hardly plastic. The mood is sternly Dorian and darkling. It is the intellectual Brahms who confronts us with his supreme disdain for what we like or dislike; it is Brahms giving utterance to bitter truths, and only when he reaches the section in D minor does he relax and sing in smoother accents; but those common chords in B flat ruthlessly interrupt the Norse-like melody, and we are once again launched on the sea of troubled argument. This B minor rhapsody always sounds to me as if its composer were trying to prove something algebraic, all the while knitting his awful brows in the most logical manner. There is little rhapsody in it, but of intellectual acrimoniousness much. The second melody has an astringency that is very grateful to mental palates weary of the sweets of other composers.