Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, whichshows such a high degree of inner

mental “logical” rigor, formal complete-ness, and creative freedom—in short,perfection—is one of the best examplesof motivic thorough-composition, and itdemonstrates, that as late as the end oflast century, musical work in the “oldforms”—which by then were widelyslandered—was still being mastered.

Brahms’ accomplishments in thisfield were, by the way, also—albeitenviously—acknowledged by his foes.Even from his “neo-German” antago-nist Richard Wagner, who, during theironly personal encounter (in Vienna, inFebruary 1864), after Brahms had deliv-ered a convincing proof of his art withthe performance of his Variations on aTheme by Handel, was so astonished,that he declared: “One sees what can beaccomplished in the old forms, if thereis someone who knows how to usethem.”1 But that didn’t pull Wagner—let alone his many followers—backfrom continuing their practice, of loud-ly crying out against Brahms, as well asinfamously conspiring against himbehind his back.

Although Brahms’ Fourth Sympho-ny was initially met with a lot of non-understanding by the “great mass” of hiscontemporaries, and even by his Viennacircle of friends, his closest artistic com-panions, such as Clara Schumann andJoseph Joachim—and Brahms himself,naturally—knew very well, what a mas-terpiece he had created. “My heart is fullto overflowing over your symphony,”wrote Clara Schumann to Brahms fromFrankfurt on Dec. 15, 1885, after shehad initially studied the piano edition.“It created a beautiful hour for me, cap-tivating me through its richness incolour and its beauty otherwise. I almost

don’t know, which movement I shouldprefer: the first, dreaming one, with itsmarvellous development part and thewonderful points of rest, and its softwaving inner movement flowing with it . . . or the last one, grandiosely con-structed, with its enormous manifold-ness, and despite its such great work sofull of passion . . . which lies already inits main motif (one could not really callit a theme). . . . I wish I could personal-ly speak with you about it, with thescore before us!”2

With the violinist Joseph Joachim,his closest friend since the beginning ofthe 1850s, who in the meantime hadbecome the director of the music con-servatory in Berlin, Brahms corre-sponded concerning this, as also in allother cases, in detail about many techni-cal musical questions, especially con-cerning the strings. Joachim thusalready knew parts of the symphonybefore it was published. Directly afterthe dress-rehearsal, and just before hewas about to perform the Berlin debutof Brahms’ Fourth at an academy con-cert on Feb. 1, 1886, Joachim wrote tohis “highly esteemed master”: “If I did-n’t express my, in fact, extreme enthusi-asm about your newest symphonyimmediately after the first rehearsal, itis solely due to the gigantic work loadof the past few days. . . . We now haveplayed through your magnificent cre-ation in our dress rehearsal today, and Imay hope, that tonight it can be per-formed with certainty and passion. Itreally sank ever deeper down into mysoul and that of the orchestra. The grip-ping character of the whole, the densityof invention, the wonderfully inter-twined growth of the motifs, even morethan the richness and the beauty of sin-gle parts, I like very much, so that I

almost believe, the E minor is myfavorite among the four symphonies. . . .It is not so easy, though, to beautifullyplay the variation of the theme dividedamong the two violins; but if one wantsto change it, and believes to haveaccomplished it in one bar, the verynext bar then creates a problem—youreally invent in such a logical way,everything is so fully in place, that oneought not touch it in the least. Thepizzicati are shown to full advantageeverywhere.”3

The judgment of these two greatartists and friends is no surprise, howev-er; especially, as both—even if only indi-rectly and without knowing it—had acertain “part” in developing the conceptof this magnificent symphony, in whichBrahms unmistakably demonstrated,what enormous, freedom-creatingpotential is contained in the method ofmotivic thorough-composition, whichhe took over from his Classical forebearsin whose tradition he consciously placedhimself.

As in all great Classical works, thekey to understanding lies in the entireprocess of development of the piece, so,too, for this symphony; i.e., the processof musical development expressed there-in is best approached “backwards.” Onestarts with the last movement: that partof the whole, which was constantlygoing through the head of the composeras the “final goal.” As is well known,Brahms—like Beethoven—meticulous-ly changed and fine-tuned every detailof a composition when near completionfor quite some time; but he also—likeMozart and practically all other greatcomposers—had already worked outthe whole composition conceptually inhis head before writing it down.

The Finale of the Fourth Symphony,

105

Brahms’ Fourth Symphony: A Masterpiece of 8 Motivic Thorough-Compositionby Hartmut Cramer

which has no instructions other than thetempo marking “Allegro energico e pas-sionato,” is the best proof of this. Brahmshad written down the first and secondmovements during his summer “vaca-tion” of 1884 in Mürzzuschlag (at Sem-mering); the other two—as Brahmsexplicitly noted in his 1885 calendar,first the Finale, and then the Scherzo—were written in the summer the yearafter, also in Mürzzuschlag. Brahms,who never released a musical pieceunfinished, and who always insistedwith his pupils (and himself) that itshould be considered as a completewhole in content and form, steadilyrejected all the requests of his friends,that he present them with some “juicyappetizers” during the process of cre-ation—and sometimes brutally so (“Ijust put together a polka and waltzparty,” or, “Just a few entr’actes . . . what together usually is called asymphony”). The only thing that hisfriends could get out of him during thistime, as far as the “content” of his greatcomposition was concerned, was thepoetical comparison with the “climate”in Mürzzuschlag: “The cherries here arenot going to get sweet; you wouldn’t eatthem!” he wrote during the summermonths of 1885 to the conductor Hansvon Bülow, with whose orchestra inMeiningen he would be rehearsing andperforming this symphony later thatyear. So, Brahms knew perfectly wellthe kind of mental work he was about toimpose on his contemporaries.

His preliminary studies of the lastmovement, however, go back more than10 years. Even though people were try-ing to figure out the form of the lastmovement for quite some time after thevery first performance, Brahms himself,as usual, didn’t comment publicly on hisworks; besides, he believed what hewrote to Hans von Bülow after the“mishap” of the first performance of thissymphony at the end of September 1885in Vienna (Brahms and the pianistIgnaz Brüll performed it on two pianosamong a few close friends): “I am notreally interested in a premiere. More in aperformance after 10 or 20 years—which for an artist the likes of us meansimmortality”4—it is obvious that this

final movement is clearly a chaconne, ora passacaglia. Joachim recognized this atonce—no wonder, being a violinist whomasterfully performed the famous Cha-conne from J.S. Bach’s Partita No. 2 in Dminor for unaccompanied violin. (Inorder to make the audience of his above-mentioned academy concert aware thathe had concluded this symphony in anunusual and very special form, Brahmsadded an asterisk to the “Allegro energicoe passionato,” and the words “Variationson the theme:” followed by the theme asshown in Figure 8.1.

Brahms, who had intensively studiedthe works of J.S. Bach from his earlyyouth on, and who held Bach’s art ofcomposition in exceptionally highesteem, not only knew this extraordi-nary final movement of Bach’s D minorPartita very well through the interpreta-tions of his friend Joachim,5 but also,because he had arranged this piece (likemost of the other sonatas and partitasfor unaccompanied violin) for studypurposes, and for “simply pure plea-sure,” for piano for one hand, as is madeclear by a letter from him to Clara Schu-mann (June 1877):

“To me, [Bach’s] Chaconne is one ofthe most wonderful, unbelievable musicpieces. In one system, for a small instru-ment, the man writes a whole world ofdeepest thoughts and most powerfulemotions. If I were to imagine that Iwould have been able to make, toreceive this piece, I know for sure, that Iwould have become mad because of theenormous excitement and shock. If onedoesn’t have the greatest violinistaround, then it is well the most beautifulpleasure, to simply listen to its sound inone’s mind.

“But the piece demands that onemust work with it in all ways. And onealso doesn’t want to hear music simplysounding in the air; Joachim is not hereso often, and therefore I try this andthat. But whatever I take, orchestra orpiano—the pleasure is always spoiled.

“In only one way, I find, can I createfor myself a much smaller, but approxi-mating, and wholly pure pleasure of thispiece—if I play it with the left handalone! Even the history of the egg ofColumbus then comes to my mind! A

similar difficulty, the kind of technique,the process of making the arpeggios,everything comes together, so that I—feel like a violinist! Try it, I wrote itdown only for you.”6

Working with this piece “in allways”—that’s what Brahms wanted toaccomplish almost a decade later by wayof composing a symphony, proving withthat, the enormous creative potentialitiesthe proper use of this “old,” tremen-dously strict (but also free) form wouldallow. Naturally, composers had alreadypreviously concluded a symphony witha variations movement—the mostfamous among them being Beethovenwith his “Eroica” Symphony No. 3, asBrahms constantly pointed out to hisskeptical Viennese friends; but the exactform of a chaconne as the concludingmovement—and climax—of a greatsymphony? This, before Brahms, hadnever been tried.

By choosing the form of the cha-conne, or the passacaglia,7 Brahms haddefined the—“old,” and always“new”—problem: How can the basicprinciple of musical (and human) devel-opment—change, variation—bedemonstrated by way of a “fixed” musi-cal line? How can creative freedom beunified with lawful necessity? How cansuch music—and art generally—be“rigorous and free” at the same time?

Conceptually, this movement is fullyequivalent to Bach’s Chaconne (Figure8.2). Bach varies a theme (motif) of fourbars, i.e., its supporting bass line; and hedoes it in such a way, that with practi-cally every new four-bar section, a newvariation begins, practically withoutchanging the bass-line harmonically. Allin all, Bach is very careful in changingthe harmonics during the composition;the first, elaborated part of variations isin D minor, the second in the related Dmajor mode; then comes a part—which

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Fourth movement theme of Brahms’ Symphony No. 4

is equally strictly composed, i.e., startingevery four bars with a new variation—again in D minor, until Bach concludesthis immense work with a cadenza. The“trick” which Bach uses to createchanges throughout the composition,and even changes of the changes, despitethe “fixed” theme, or motif, is to varythe other voices, to change the themeitself rhythmically, to place it into otherregisters, and to “disguise” it, or “adapt”it to its environment in such a way, thatpartly a “logical,” partly a surprisingprocess of development takes place.And, when this can lead to such a mag-nificent result with only four voices on a“small” string instrument, what then canbe accomplished with a big orchestrawith many voices?

That is exactly what Brahms demon-strated with the final movement of Sym-phony No. 4 in E minor: With 8 bars,his theme/motif takes exactly twice thenumber of bars, as does Bach’s Cha-conne. The other basic difference:Brahms theme is placed in the soprano(instead of the bass) voice. Otherwise,the formal architecture is the same: Thetheme is in 3/4 time, and is varied—with only a few exceptions—exactlyevery eight bars, itself remaining com-pletely unchanged harmonically. Natural-ly, Brahms can let the theme roamthrough all the voices of the orchestra, afact which he exploits freely, althoughhe adheres to the Classical tradition,insofar as the four string voices—theorchestra’s inner “core”—bear the mainburden of the thematic work. After hav-ing first presented the theme with thewoodwinds and brass alone (Figure8.3), beginning in measure 9 (Figure8.4) the first violins takes up the theme(pizzicato); in measure 17 the ’cellos (alsopizzicato). In measure 25, the first violinstake over again, but this time withplucked chords; and then, in measure 33,the contrabasses (supported by the bas-soons) sing the theme (changed rhyth-mically by way of octaves) strongly withthe bow (arco), while the middle voicesof the string section accompany this(likewise arco) with a rhythmically dis-placed counterpoint, and the first violins(“ben marcato largamente”) with a “lyri-cal” one.

107

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After a rather free variation of thetheme by the flute, which is only “sup-ported” by the first French horn and theupper strings, comes—as in Bach’swork—an equally rigorously (andfreely) composed series of variations inthe related E major mode, in whichBrahms takes the liberty to present thetheme not only by one group of instru-ments alone, but lets it roam through allthe voices.

In measure 129 (not shown) thereprise begins, where the theme is quot-ed “verbatim” by the brass and wood-winds, but is varied contrapuntally start-ing with the upbeat to measure 133,played fortissimo by the upper strings,and starting with the downbeat of mea-sure 134, also by the ’cellos and contra-basses.

During the following part of varia-tions, Brahms exploits the freedomwhich he has accomplished so far: Hevaries the variations using the entireorchestra in a rhythmically very freemanner, and concludes this movementwith a 58-measure-long coda, beginningwith measure 253 (not shown).

That is the formal architecture of thislast movement, which conceptually fol-lows Bach’s Chaconne, but, in its exten-sion—as intended—naturally farexceeds this great example. The way inwhich Brahms presents this theme har-monically, demonstrates above all, thathe quite consciously walked in the foot-steps of other Classical examples. Whatis striking about this rather “harmless”E minor motif, is the fact, that in mea-sure 5 (Figure 8.1), Brahms uses an A ,̌a tone totally alien to this mode. Thatthis is not just meant as a characteristicof this motif, is made clear by the factthat Brahms emphasizes this place witha tympani (kettledrum) (Figure 8.3);and he does this, not only when present-ing this motif, but again and again dur-ing the whole movement. This intervalof E-A ,̌ which is heard clearly by wayof this suddenly introduced roll of thekettledrum (with the e being additional-ly strengthened by the trumpets and thetwo first French horns, while the a ′̌′ isplayed by the upper winds (two flutes,one oboe, and one clarinet), as well asalso the fourth French horn and the first

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trombone, is nothing but the “Lydianinterval.” It interrupts the line of devel-opment of the E minor motif, creatingan “unclarity” in the key, even “lifting itoff its hinges” (since modulations in alldirections become thinkable), andmakes clear from the very beginning:nothing is constant, but change itself!

The other interval which Brahmsuses predominantly at this prominentplace, is the third, and its inversion, thesixth. The fact that this is no accident, isdemonstrated by the use of pizzicato inthe strings beginning in measure 9 (Fig-ure 8.4); almost all the chords of thestrings contain both complementaryintervals. The prominent and character-istic use of these intervals—third, sixth,and Lydian interval (highlighted by thetympani)—shows itself throughout theentire movement, until the very end(Figure 8.5). [text continues on page 110]

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Conclusion of fourth movement of Brahms’ Symphony No. 4

This results—apart from the veryfree, but equally strict usage of the cha-conne form—in the stunning complete-ness of the whole movement. But on thisrests the no-less-surprising conceptualunity of the entire symphony. Theaforementioned intervallic relationshipsmark the opening of the symphony(Figure 8.6), dominate the first move-ment (Figure 8.7), and are equallyprominent throughout the second andthird movements (which, as alreadymentioned, according to Brahms’ note-book, he composed, or rather wrotedown, as the very last piece of the sym-phony).

Even more revealing is the fact, thatBrahms took the idea of the openingmotif, rhythmically and harmonically,from no less a composer thanBeethoven, as the following measures(Figure 8.8) from the “Adagio sostenuto”of the piano sonata Op. 106 demon-strate. (As is shown in Chapter 7, wefind evidence in Beethoven’s sketch-books, that Beethoven in turn sought thehelp of J.S. Bach, copying down key pas-sages from The Art of the Fugue (see Fig-ure 7.2). And as pointed out in Chapter3, in Fugue IV of that work (see Figure3.11), a sequence of descending thirdsbecome a crucial characteristic of themusical development.) Brahms studiedthese examples of his forerunners inten-sively.

Returning to Figure 8.8: In this pas-sage, Beethoven makes extremely densekey changes (in the course of only 12measures, he explicitly points to achange in key three times), with the cli-max without any doubt reached in mea-sures 78-84, which are nominally in Cminor/C major, but which are, in fact,from measure 80 onward, in a keylessmode, a harmonic “no man’s land,”where Beethoven intensifies the densityof key changes to the extreme, so that nomode dominates at all.

Exactly this kind of ambiguity iswhat Brahms creates at the very begin-ning of the first movement, by his exten-sive use of Dˇ—a tone extraneous to thenatural E minor scale—and the Lydianinterval a-dˇ′ created thereby, whichsurfaces in the violas’ echoing of theentrance-motif (and three times, at that),

110

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as well as in both the first and secondviolins, playing in octaves, between theira′-a′′ in measure 2, and their d ′̌-d ′̌′ inmeasure 3 (Figure 8.9).

It is quite obvious, that Brahmsdeveloped the second theme (motif) ofthis movement, which is presented bythe winds in unison (Figure 8.7), out ofthe material of the opening motif;repeatedly he uses (besides the alreadyknown pair of third/sixth intervals), theLydian interval to the (E minor) basicnote, the A ,̌ which in turn plays such aprominent role in the motif of the finalmovement. Thus, Brahms maintains thepractice, which Norbert Brainin hasindicated in all his discussions of thecompositional method of motivic thor-ough-composition, by writing “mono-thematically”; i.e., he always sticks to thetheme.

It is impossible to deal with the close

motivic relationship of the first andfourth movements with the second andthird ones, in this article, but they are soobvious, that the reader can easily deter-mine them for himself.

In conclusion, it remains to be said,that such a dense and perfect (in thetruest sense of the word) composition,requires a corresponding level of perfor-mance, by way of which the “sour cher-ries” can become edible. And, since weunfortunately have no recordings byBrahms himself, or by his friendJoachim (who, as we know from his let-ters to Brahms, was very careful in per-forming such works), we have to listento those conductors, who considered theperformance of Classical music anendeavor coming truly from the heart.And among them, Wilhelm Furtwän-gler, in whose maternal family JohannesBrahms was often received as a guest, is

surely the best, as he expresses theincreasing “density of inventions”(Joseph Joachim) and “enormous mani-foldness” (Clara Schumann) of theFinale both energetically and passion-ately. Especially his live recordings withthe Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,some of which can luckily still be heard(among them, the one from Oct. 24,1948), since they are available on record-ings and CD’s, are still (and especially!)today a measure of the fact, of howextraordinarily alive (“Energico e pas-sionato”) Classical works sound, if per-formed with “heart and mind,” as wellas with “certainty and passion.”__________

1. Karl Geiringer, Brahms, His Life andWork (New York: Oxford University Press,1982), p.83.

2. Letters of Clara Schumann andJohannes Brahms, 1853-1896, ed. by BertholdLitzmann (London: 1927; reprint, Westport,Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1979).

3. Johannes Brahms im Briefwechsel mitJoseph Joachim, ed. by Andreas Moser(Berlin: 1908).

4. Max Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms (Tutz-ing: Hans Schneider, 1976; reprint of 1904-14edition), Vol. III, p. 455. Pages 445ff. containa detailed account of this “unfortunate” per-formance.

5. That Joachim took the interpretationof Bach’s Chaconne extraordinarily seriously,is demonstrated by the fact, that during hisyears in Berlin, he performed this piece onlyon a Stradivarius violin, which he consideredespecially well suited for this kind of musicbecause of its exceptional tonal qualities. Onall appropriate occasions, he borrowed thisparticular violin from a Berlin violinmakerwho owned it. This Stradivarius, whichbecause of this fact was named the Cha-conne, was played for many years by the firstviolinist of the Amadeus Quartet, NorbertBrainin.

6. Berthold Litzmann, op. cit.

7. The chaconne was a originally a formof aria—not a dance—of the SeventeenthCentury, which allowed the bel canto singerto improvise freely. Its “support” was a bassline, which repeated a certain pattern: Itstarted on the tonic, moved slightly down-wards, and then upwards again to the tonic.While initially different concerning the char-acteristics of their respective bass lines, theterms “chaconne” and “passacaglia” becameincreasingly interchangeable during theEighteenth Century.

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