is stants

siete

cate AV |i 4 + i.

CAN SS Ws

(J = QI” ee Qu B SS

¥ BOSTON »® SYMPHONY } ORCHESTRA 4

y

EriCH LEINSDORF

Mono LM-3010

Stereo LSC-3010

Produced by Richard Mohr

Recording Engineer: Anthony Salvatore

The mightiest of the four

We are so accustomed to thinking of Brahms’ four sym-

phonies as a sort of indivisible epic totality—a grand sum-

mary of classic symphonic practice, everywhere understood

and honored as such—that it comes as a shock to realize

that this critical unanimity has not always prevailed. Thanks

to the relentless hostility of the Wagnerian faction, the

first person to become highly sensitized to the early divi-

sion of opinion about his symphonies was Brahms himself.

He was well aware, for example, that although Vienna had

greeted his more melodic second and third symphonies

with enthusiasm, this incurably frivolous city had been

decidedly cool toward his first. Exactly the reverse situation

prevailed in intellectually serious Leipzig, where the highly

architectural first symphony had been much more success-

ful than the two subsequent ones.

Brahms was therefore deeply concerned about the im-

mediate public fate of the fourth symphony, of which it

may be said categorically that it is not for the frivolous. It

is perhaps the most complex score that Brahms ever wrote,

and the intellectuality of at Jeast its final movement is as

uncompromising as anything in the history of symphonic

music. Brahms began the symphony in 1884 (he was then

51) at Miirzzuschlag in Styria. As the work neared comple-

tion there in the summer of the following year, the com-

poser’s correspondence began to reveal his misgivings

about the “unusual demands” it might make on the public

sympathy. Early in October of 1885, following the custom

established with his earlier symphonies, Brahms invited his

Viennese friends to Friedrich Ehrbar’s house to hear the

work in an arrangement for two pianos. The response was

not encouraging. The symphony awakened no really whole-

hearted enthusiasm among those most predisposed to

understand and welcome it, and it has been conjectured

by some critics that, except for the intervention of a fortun-

ate circumstance, Brahms might have been tempted at the

time to withhold the Fourth from public performance.

The fortunate circumstance was the interest of Hans

von Bulow, who wanted the work for his Meiningen or-

chestra. Brahms first sent Biilow the third and fourth move-

ments for preliminary rehearsal, following them in person

on October 11 with the balance of the score. For the next

two weeks he drilled the orchestra with the enthusiastic

support of Biilow—plus that of such other early partisans of

the Fourth as the Landgrave of Hesse, the pianist (and

early Beethoven specialist) Frederic Lamond and the newly

Library of Congress Card Numbers R68-2639 (Mono)

and R68-2640 (Stereo) apply to this recording.

famous conductor-composer Richard Strauss, all of whom

attended the first full rehearsal. At length Brahms seems to

have attained a nervous but rather stoic mood about his

prospects—satisfied that the orchestra would represent his

score faithfully but not very optimistic about its probable

public success. |

The premiére took place under the baton of Brahms on

October 25, 1885. The first and second movements were

received by the audience with unqualified approval. The

third movement awakened so vociferous a response that

for a time it seemed unlikely that the concert could pro-

ceed unless Brahms consented to repeat it. This he refused

to do—after all, none knew better than he what his con-

trapuntal final movement had in store for his listeners’

powers of concentration—and he thus deferred until the

end of the performance one of the great audience demon-

strations recorded in the annals of concert premieres. —

Following this triumphant inaugural, Brahms, Bulow and

the Meiningen orchestra promptly—and literally—took the

Fourth on the road. In its initial tour, the work ‘‘played”’

Frankfurt, Siegen, Dortmund, Essen, Elberfeld, Dusseldorf,

Rotterdam, Utrecht, Amsterdam, The Hague, Arnheim,

Krefeld and Bonn. Under Hans Richter, the symphony re-

ceived its Vienna premiére on January 17, 1886. Under the

composer’s direction, its Leipzig premiere came at a Ge-

wandhaus concert on February 18. Considering that he had

now enjoyed a triumphant international progress with his

most problematic major work, Brahms must at this point

have been rather amused by the fact that the reaction of

the last two cities ran true to form. Vienna (except, of

course, for the declared anti-Brahmsians) received the

work with respectful praise but not with all-out rapture.

Leipzig, on the other hand, went overboard for the Fourth

even more than it had for the First, and Bernhard Vogl, the

critic of the Leipziger Nachrichten, observed pointedly that

the “tumultuous and long-continued applause’”’ must have -

compensated Brahms for the ‘‘coolness’’ of some of his

former receptions. Regarding the work’s final movement,

the same critic made a comparison that has since become

standard in exegetic works: “The finale is certainly the

most original of the movements, and furnishes more com-

plete argument that has heretofore been brought forward

for the opinion of those who see in Brahms the modern

Sebastian Bach.”

Like Bach’s Chaconne for violin, the Fourth’s final move-

© 1968, RCA, New York, N.Y. ¢ Printed in U.S.A.

ment is in form a vast passacaglia, a deliberate bid by

Brahms for highest honors in the masterpiece style. Be-

ginning with an eight-note theme that is simply a fragment

of the E minor scale with a single chromatic passing tone,

Brahms produces from it an incredibly elaborate set of

variations—a veritable catalog of contrapuntal virtuosities

on the grandest possible scale. Moreover, observes Vogl,

the movement “is filled with Bach’s spirit,” and “its con-

trapuntal learning remains subordinate to its poetic con-

tents... .”

On April 9, Brahms conducted the Fourth in Hamburg,

and Joseph Sittard, the critic of the Correspondent, pub-

lished the classic 19th-century statement about the relation

of the Fourth to the other Brahms symphonies: “The E

minor Symphony is distinguished from the second and third

principally by the rigorous and even grim earnestness

which, though in a totally different way, marks the first.

More than ever does the composer follow out his ideas to

their conclusion, and this unbending logic makes the im-

mediate understanding of the work difficult. . . . In the

contrapuntal treatment of its themes, in richness of har-

mony and in the art of instrumentation, it seems to us

superior to the second and third. These, perhaps, have the

advantage of greater melodic beauty, a guarantee of popu-

larity. In depth, power and originality of conception, how-

ever, the fourth symphony takes its place by the side of

the first. ... In a word, the symphony is of monumental

significance.”

The passage of 82 years has changed only one conclusion

in the above analysis. Today the “grimly earnest” Fourth is

so irreplaceably installed in the concert repertory that no

real Brahmsian could be persuaded that the work was ever

found all that “difficult.” —ROBERT OFFERGELD

Other RCA Victor recordings by

Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony:

Carter Piano Concerto (Jacob Lateiner, Pianist) * Colgrass As

Quiet As erie Gekg- Semen nb vr ee oe ees LM/LSC-3001

Prokofieff Music from “Romeo and Juliet’ ...... LM/LSC-2994

Beethoven Symphony No. 7 * Coriolan Overture . . LM/LSC-2969

DYNAGROOVE Timings: Side 1-11:54, 11:40 ¢ Side 2—6:04, 9:12

i Yea ai et athe te Se at

eK Seatt

anes smeryn te Pe

pacer Biot o spscerscen peters

beth teny Sorbo ite hiteng Secs

® —— ir “ice mate sreseataimemmr:: Ao Ae

pVI C

20

ax’ JS ?