Klavierstücke Op.76

Eight piano pieces op 76

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Klavierstücke Op.76

Capriccio in F sharp minor: un poco agitato

Capriccio in B minor: allegretto non troppo

Intermezzo in A flat major: grazioso

Intermezzo in B flat major: allegretto grazioso

Capriccio in C sharp minor: agitato ma non troppo presto

Intermezzo in A major: andante con moto

Intermezzo in A minor: moderato semplice

Capriccio in C major: grazioso ed un poco vivace

Brahms wrote his last piano sonata in 1853 at the age of 20, his last set of piano variations in 1863 and no solo piano music at all for as long as fifteen years after that. When he returned to the piano it was with the four Capriccios and four Intermezzos of Op.76 and, as far as the piano was concerned, he restricted himself to similar groups of small-scale pieces for the rest of his composing career – the Seven Fantasies Op.116, the Three Intermezzos Op.117, the Six Pieces Op.118 and the Four Pieces Op.119.

The first piece in the earliest of these groups, the Capriccio in F sharp minor Op.76 No.1 is one of the most characteristic. It is the essential impromptu, beginning with the contemplation of a figure which, instead of developing into the expected melody, finds itself accompanying a poetic inspiration of a quite different shape. That same figure runs through the whole piece, sometimes in academically derived variants, like the inversion in the middle and the rhythmic augmentation near the end, which sound so fresh that they might have been invented for the first time.

The Capriccio in B minor toys delightfully with Hungarian gypsy mannerisms and the Intermezzo in A flat major, by picking out the chords in the top half of the keyboard and hesistantly improvising a melody above them, creates a new, harp-like sound. The Intermezzo in B flat major, which seems so unassuming at first and then almost wilful in its contrasting material, is an exquisitely modelled sonata movement in miniature. The energy of the Capriccio in C sharp minor derives from the friction of the carefully calculated cross-rhythms between the hands – an apparent 3/4 in the right against 6/8 in the left – which are further complicated by still more syncopations just before the end. There is a similar kind of conflict in the Intermezzo in A major, although here it is used not to generate energy but to liberate the rhythms from metrical regularity in the outer sections and to offset the elegance of the F sharp minor melody in the middle.

The last Intermezzo and the last Capriccio are vividly contrasted. The forrmer is a poetic improvisation – on a chromatic phrase in dotted rhythm prominently introduced in the opening bars – and the latter a technical study as imaginative as any of Chopin’s.