Horn Trio in E flat major Op.40 (1865)

Brahms’s Horn Trio was written in 1865, sixteen years later than Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro. If Brahms’s horn writing seems less progressive than Schumann’s in the earlier work it is because he insisted on writing for the hand hrn, the distinctively brilliant sound of which he evidently valued more highly (as hornist himself) that the chromatic facility of the valve horn. In fact, it is not so much the horn writing that is surprising as the violin writing, which makes little use of the natural agility and flexibility of the strng instrument but treats it rather as a kind of second horn, often playing in third or fifths with a simple harmonic or rhythmic accopampaniment in the piano part. So the Horn Trio has a textural quality which is all its own.

It is said that the work was written in memory of the composer’s mother, who had died earlier in the year. Certainly, the melancholy third movement, the Adagio mesto, must have some such inspiration behind it, and the first movement is far from the heroic exercise one might expect from a horn piece in E flat major. The opening Andante is, in fact, based on a modest and thoughtful little melody which, because of its chromatic inflections, is associated not so much with the horn as with the violin and piano.

The material of the Scherzo, on the other hand, was obviously designed to take advantage of the horn’s more conventional qualities, even though it is the piano which introduces the main theme in E flat major. The horn makes up for that with a dramatic intervention in G flat major, quietly takes up the main theme in E flat (with the violin in thirds) and offers a lyrical variatn in b major (with the violin in fifths this time), before acquiescing in the piano’s readoption of the material in the tonic key. The slower A flat minor melody of the trio section is another gift for the horn (the key signuatre being somewhat less awkward for the horn than the other two instruments).

The Adagio mesto in in E flat minor, desperately sombe in the piano introduction but lighter in colour, if not in emotional content, with the entry of the horn and violin. The piano gravitates towards its heavy harmonies; the horn and violin tend to float away in legato melody, expressing themselves ever more passionately, until they too sink into darkest melancholy.

The outdoor finale clears the air, converting E flat minor sorrow in the thrill of the chase in E flat major. This, of course, is the horn’s natural role in life and, while not neglecting to echo the emotional disquiet of the earlier movement, its makes the best of an extrovert situation.