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.
SYMPHONY NO. 4, IN E MINOR, OP. 98
I. Allegro non troppo II. Andante moderato III. Allegro giocoso IV. Allegro energico e passionato
Much of the Fourth symphony is melancholy and lamentful, but it is relieved by the consolatory beatitude of the andante and the elevating stateliness of the conclusion.... The austerity with which the composer has been reproached—in many instances unjustly—is here pronounced. The solidity of the structure may be admired, but the structure itself is granitic and unrelieved. The symphony has not the epic grandeur of the first, the geniality of the second, the wealth of varied beauty that distinguishes the third.
This symphony was first performed at Meiningen, October 25, 1885, under the direction of the composer.
It was composed in the summers of 1884 and 1885 at Mürzzuschlag in Styria: Miss Florence May in her Life of Brahms says that the manuscript was nearly destroyed in 1885: “Returning one afternoon from a walk, he [Brahms] found that the house in which he lodged had caught fire, and that his friends were busily engaged in bringing his papers, and amongst them the nearly finished manuscript of the new symphony, into the garden.”