There are three earlier sets of variations, opus 9, opus 21, Nos. 1 and 2, which are small beside the two later sets just discussed. As far as pianoforte music is concerned, the variations on a theme of Handel, and the subsequent variations on a theme of Paganini, represent the culmination of Brahms’ conscious technical development, the one in the direction of intellectual mastery, the other in the direction of keyboard effects. Behind them lie the sonatas, the scherzo, and the ballades, all in a measure inspired, yet all likewise tentative. After them come numerous sets of short pieces which constitute one of the most beautiful and one of the perfect contributions to pianoforte music.
These sets are opus 76, Nos. 1 and 2; the two Rhapsodies, opus 79, and the last works for the instrument, opus 117, opus 118, and opus 119. There are few pieces among them which are unworthy of the highest genius matched with consummate mastery of the science of music. The two earlier collections, opus 76 and 79, differ from the later in something the same way that Beethoven’s opus 57 differs from his opus 110. They are impassioned, fully scored, dramatic, and warm. The two Capriccios, Nos. 1 and 5 in opus 76, are distinguished from his other pieces by a fiery agitation. The keys of F-sharp minor and C-sharp minor on the pianoforte lend themselves to intense and restless expression. In the former of these two pieces more is suggested than fully revealed.
The introduction, beginning in deep and ominous gloom, mounts up like waves tossed high in a storm. But the rush of the great C-sharps up from the depths is broken, as it were, upon the sharpest dissonance; the storm dies away suddenly, and over the wild confusion, now suppressed, a voice sings out a sad yet impassioned melody. This melody dominates the piece. The wild introduction returns in the middle part, but only to be suppressed once more.
The second of these Capriccios, No. 5, is more varied, more agitated, yet perhaps less intense. There is an almost constant complexity of rhythm, uniquely typical of Brahms, the combination of two with three beats; and at the end most complicated syncopations, the left hand, by reason of definite phrasing, seeming to play nearly four measures in 5/8 time. The Capriccio No. 8 and the Intermezzo No. 6 are similarly involved. The scoring of both is rich and full; and, though neither is agitated in mood, both have a quality of intensity. The Capriccio in B minor in the first set is justly a favorite with pianist and concert-goer alike. The two intermezzi which follow it are rather in the later style, and the former is conspicuous in Brahms’ music by a light grace. Even here, however, the composer cannot give himself over utterly to airy fancy. There are measures of involved workmanship and profound meaning.
The two ‘Rhapsodies,’ opus 79, are among the best known of Brahms’ pianoforte works. Both are involved and difficult; but the form and the ideas are broad and consequently more easily grasped than in the shorter pieces. Moreover, they are frankly vigorous and passionate; and the B major section of the former, with its bell-like effects, and the broad middle section of the latter, like the gallop of a regiment across the steppes, are relatively conventional.
In most of the pieces of the three last sets there is a touch of mysticism, often of asceticism. The style is transparent; the accompaniments, if one may speak of accompaniment in music that is so polyphonic, are lightly touched upon, barely sketched. They have no fixed line, but seem like flowing draperies about a figure in free, calm movement. Witness particularly the second piece in opus 117 and the sixth in opus 118. The latter is surely one of the most romantic of all Brahms’ pieces. Does it speak of some ancient ruin in the northern twilight? Is it some vision in a bleak, windswept place? Is not the opening phrase like the voice of the spirit of Time and Mortality? How the winds sweep it up, how it echoes and reëchoes through the night. And there comes a strain of martial music. The splendors that were rise like mist out of the ground. The shades of strong heroes pass by. Through the vision still rings the inexorable cry, till the spirits have vanished and the wind once more blows over a deserted place. It is all a strange, wailing invocation to the past.
All are unusual music, all masterpieces. There is the utmost skill, as in the canonic figures in the first intermezzo of opus 117, in the middle section of opus 118, No. 2, and all through opus 118, No. 4. There is a legendary quality in both opus 117, No. 1, and opus 117, No. 3. In the latter the A major section is extraordinarily beautiful and without a parallel in music. The last set is perhaps as a whole the most remarkable. There are three intermezzos and one rhapsody. In many measures of the first intermezzo the harmonies seem to unfold from a single note, to be shed downward like light from a star. The music drifts to a melody full of human yearning, rises again in floating harmonies, drifts slowly downward, too heavy with sadness. In the second and third the mood is happier, cool in the second, smiling in the third. The final rhapsody is without a trace of sentiment, healthy, sane, and enormously vigorous. Something stands in the way of its effectiveness, however. It is coldly triumphant. If there is any phase in human feeling which is wholly strange to music, it is the sense of perfect physical condition, entailing an unruffled mind and the flawless working of the muscles, without excess, with only the enthusiasm of physical well-being, and this entirely equable. The rhapsody in E-flat, opus 119, No. 4, is thus normal.
The features of Brahms’ style are clearly marked. There are the wide spacing of accompaniment figures demanding a large hand and the free movement of the arm, the complicated rhythms, the frequent use of octaves with the sixth included, the generally deliberate treatment of material, the employment of low and high registers at once with little or nothing between, the lack of passage work to relieve the usual sombre coloring. The enthusiast will have little difficulty in imitating him. Yet it is doubtful if Brahms will have a successor in pianoforte music. What makes his work tolerable is the greatness of his ideas, and this greatness makes them sublime. His procedures in the employment of another will be cold and dull. It is safer to imitate the virtuoso style of Liszt, for that has an intrinsic charm.
There are two concertos, one in D minor, opus 15, and one in B-flat major, opus 83. Brahms performed the first himself in Leipzig and was actually hissed from the stage. Yet it is a very great work, one of the few great concertos written for the pianoforte. A certain gloomy seriousness in the character of the themes stands in the way of its popular acceptance, and there are passages, notably in the middle movement, the ungainliness of which not even the most impassioned fancy or the deepest seriousness can disguise. The second concerto is longer and more brilliant. This, too, must be ranked with the earlier one, as one of the few great concertos, but chiefly by reason of the noble quality of the ideas, the mastery of art and form. Brahms’ treatment of the piano is nowhere conventionally pianistic. This second concerto is more than exceedingly difficult; but those qualities in the instrument which add a variety of color and light to the ensemble are for the most part not revealed in it. There is consequently a monotony that in so long a work is likely to prove tedious. A few figures and a few effects are peculiar to the pianoforte. These should rightfully be brought into prominence in a concerto. Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann were able to do this, not in the least subtracting from the genuine value of their work, but rather adding to it. Brahms was less able to combine beauty and conventionality. Yet such a passage as the return to the first theme in the first movement of the second concerto shows a great appreciation of color; and there is a grandeur and dignity in both concertos, a wealth of romance in the first and of vitality in the second, as well, in the presence of which criticism may well be silent.
It is a long way in music from the simple Moments musicals of Schubert to the B minor and E-flat minor Intermezzi of Brahms. One sings of the dawn of the new era of enthusiasm, one is of the twilight at the end. Midway, in the full flush of noonday, stands Schumann. Yet all are manifestations of the same growth. In the department of pianoforte music Brahms is of the romantic. It is not only that his best work was in short pieces; it is the nature of these pieces themselves. They are the sound in music of moods, they are fantastical and lyrical. Furthermore, more than the music of Schubert or Schumann, Brahms is national; not so much German as northern. Strains of Hungarian melodies and echoes of Schubert are not sufficient to dispel the gloom which is characteristic of his race. He speaks a profound language that will claim universal attention, but it is unmistakably colored and thoroughly permeated with the ideals and the imaginings of a northern, seacoast people. It has not the perennial warmth of Schubert and Schumann. There are no quick-changing moods, no interchanges of smiles and tears, no flashes of merriment and wit. It is cold, it is still and serious. And who will say that it is not the more romantic for being so? Deep underneath there is mysterious fervor and passion.