“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.”
SYMPHONY NO. 2, IN D MAJOR, OP. 73
I. Allegro non troppo II. Adagio non troppo III. Allegretto grazioso, quasi andantino IV. Allegro con spirito
The latest biographers of Johannes Brahms differ curiously concerning the character of the Second symphony. The excellent Walter Niemann finds a tragic undercurrent; “ghostly elements glimmering in a supernatural, uncanny way”; even “mysterious Wagnerian visions.” The equally excellent Richard Specht finds sunshine, fair days, warm winds, clarity, and tenderness. Brahms can on occasion be gloomy and crabbed enough. Why cannot Mr. Niemann, a devoted admirer of Johannes, allow him to be cheerful once in a while, as in this Second symphony?
The Symphony in D is the most genial of the four, the most easily accepted by an audience, for, if there are pages of supreme beauty in it, as toward the end of the first movement, so there are pages that are Mendelssohnian in form and in the rhythm of the easily retained melodic thought. Mendelssohn, a shrewd composer, seldom, if ever, committed the blunder of surprising an audience. As in the theater, so in the concert hall, an audience does not wish to be left in doubt, and in this symphony, which is in reality a storehouse of truly beautiful things, there is every now and then a passage that is accepted by the hearer as an agreeable commonplace.
Chamber music, choral works, pianoforte pieces, and songs had made Brahms famous before he allowed his First symphony to be played. The Symphony in C minor was performed for the first time in 1876. Kirchner wrote in a letter to Marie Lipsius that he had talked about this symphony in 1863 or 1864 with Mme Clara Schumann, who then showed him fragments of it. No one knew, it is said, of the existence of a second symphony before it was completed.