There are three sonatas, the first in C major, opus 1; the second in F-sharp minor, opus 2; the third in F minor, opus 5. The Scherzo in E-flat minor, opus 4, belongs to the same period. In the very first Brahms reveals himself; by the bare statement of the first part of the second theme; by the double thirds of the second part which conceal the sixths of which he was so fond; by the strangely hollow effect of the chromatic scale, not long before the end of the first section, with the sustained A below and the thin spacing of the whole; by the wide accompaniment figures at the end of the first movement. The octaves and sixths at the beginning of the Scherzo, the hollowness later on in the movement, the extraordinary distance between the hands in the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh measures of the second part, these are characteristic of Brahms’ way of writing for the pianoforte. The trio of this Scherzo, by the way, might alone have accounted for Schumann’s enthusiasm. The broad sweep of its melody, the intense harmonies, the magnificent climax, have the unmistakable ring of great genius. At the end of it may be noted a procedure Brahms often employed: the gradual cessation of the movement of the music by changing the value of the notes, more than by retard. The last movement is splendidly vigorous. The chief theme may have been taken from the theme of the first movement. It gallops on over mountain and hill, full of exultation and sheer physical spirits. The coda is a very whirlwind. Brahms told Albert Dietrich that he had the Scotch song ‘My Heart’s in the Highlands’ in his head while he was writing this finale; and the spirit of the song is there.
The second sonata is as a whole less interesting than the first. The first theme is not particularly well suited to the sonata form; there is a great deal of conventionality about the passages which follow it. Yet the transitional passage is interesting, and the deep, bass phrases, so isolated from their high counterpoint, are very typical. One theme serves for andante and Scherzo. In the latter movement the trio is especially beautiful. It might easily be mistaken for Schubert.
The third sonata shows a great advance over the first and second. The passage beginning in the eighth measure of the first movement is in a favorite rhythmical style of Brahms. The right hand is playing in 3/4 time, the left hand seems to be rather in 2/4. This is because the figure of which it consists proceeds independently of the measure beat. So later on one finds groups of six notes in 3/4 time arranged very frequently in figures of three notes. In fact, the mixture of double and triple rhythm is a favorite device of Brahms throughout all his work. Two of the Paganini Variations are distinctly studies in this rhythmical complexity—the fifth in the first set, the seventh in the second set, in both cases the complexity being made all the more confusing by odd phrasing.
The Andante, especially the last part of it, and the Scherzo of the third sonata are among the most beautiful of Brahms’ compositions. What the sonatas chiefly lack is not ideas nor skill to handle them, but success in many parts in the treatment of the instrument. The scoring is often far too thin. No relaxation is offered by passages of any sensuous charm. One follows with the mind an ingenious contrapuntal working-out that sounds itself empty, or leads to hollow spaces.
Except in the last movement of the second concerto, Brahms showed himself unwilling to make use of those subtle and delicate figures which succeed in giving to pianoforte music a certain warmth and blending of color. There is little or no passage work in his music. The Alberti bass which Schumann and Chopin varied and expanded, he intellectualized more and more, till it lost all semblance to the serviceable original and took on almost a polyphonic significance. There is an attendant sacrifice of delicacy for which only the nobility and strength of his ideas offer some recompense.
The Ballades, opus 10, for example, tread heavily on the keyboard. The first B major section of the second, with its appoggiaturas, its widely separated outer parts now in contrary motion, now moving together, and the mysterious single long notes between them, is marred by the low, thick registration of the whole. There is a similar thickness in the second section of the last ballade; an opposite thinness in the middle section of the little intermezzo. Yet it would be hard to find more romantic music than these Ballades, anything more grim and awful than the first, more legendary in character than the second, more gloomily sad than the last. There is a touch of sun in the first melody of the second. Elsewhere we are in a gray twilight.
‘The sedge has withered from the lake
And no birds sing.’
After all, a delicate warmth, a subtle grace of movement are not in place in such music. The style is fitting to the thought.
The variations on a theme of Paganini are, on the other hand, remarkably brilliant as a whole. They show the uttermost limits of the Brahms pianoforte technique and style, and are, of course, extremely difficult. The first two are studies in thirds and sixths, and in the second especially the upper registers of the piano are used with striking effect. In the fourth there are brilliant trills over wide figures in violin style. The eighth in the second set is in imitation of the passages in harmonies in the Paganini Caprice from which the theme is taken. Particularly effective on the pianoforte are the eleventh and thirteenth in the first set, the former with its shadowy overtonesin the right hand, the latter with the sparkling glissando octaves. The twelfth in this set is like others that have been mentioned, a study in complex rhythms, but is remarkably clear and bell-like in sound as well. The sixth, ninth, and tenth are less effective and less interesting. The second, fourth, and twelfth in the second set are conspicuous for a less scintillating but more expressive beauty. The sets as a whole are more in the style of Paganini than the études of Schumann and Liszt, which owe their being to the same source. There is more of wizardry in them, more variety and more that is wholly unusual. They give proof of enormous thought and ingenuity applied to the task of producing effects from the piano that have the quality of eeriness, which, in the playing of Paganini, suggested to the superstitious the coöperation of infernal powers.
In the ‘Variations on a Theme of Handel,’ opus 24, the same powerful intellect may be seen at work in more orthodox efforts. The results are often of more scientific than musical interest. The set is extremely long in performance, and the cumbersome fugue at the end is hardly welcome. Some of the movements are heavily or thickly scored, like the mournful thirteenth and the twentieth. Others are intellectual or uninspired, like the sixth and the ninth. But others, like the second, the fifth, the eleventh, and the nineteenth, are truly beautiful, and many are brilliant or vivacious.