Symphony No.4 in E minor, Op.98

No symphony has a more modest, less formal beginning than Brahms’s Fourth: it opens, without introduction, on the unaccompanied upbeat of a gently lilting dance tune. Dance is, in fact, one of the main concerns of the work, along with fanfare and song - purely musical topics which are innocent of emotional implications in spite of the “tragic” inspiration so frequently and so unnecessarily attributed to it.

After the lilting opening, fanfare is represented at an early stage by a transitional theme on horns and woodwind. Song makes its entry with a second-subject melody arching high on the A-string of the cellos. No unmistak­able emotional attitude is adopted until woodwind and first horn intro­duce a new second-subject melody in B major, which is happy but short. Brahms is so successful in allowing his material to develop freely according to its own nature that the re-entry of the main theme at the beginning of the recapitulation - deprived of its dance rhythm and stretched out in semi-breves in quietly non-committal octaves on woodwind - could be just another of its many variants.

The opening fanfare of the second movement has been described as “hero­ic” but it might also be an invitation to another dance - an E major sarabande introduced by clarinets, bassoons, and plucked strings. It is not a full-scale slow movement but an Andante moderato proceeding for the most part with a graciously rhythm­ic step. The lovely B major melody on the cellos is a derivative of the main theme, its counterpart in song.

The same points are at issue in the allegro giocoso, a vigorous dance in C major, contrasted with a graceful folk-song second subject. It is the one playful scherzo, as distinct from lyrical inter­mezzo, in Brahms’s four symphonies. Perhaps it was intended as an encouragement to an audience which, he feared, would “not have the patience to sit through” its finale the whole work had been designed to accommodate - a passacaglia consisting of thirty or so variations on the theme of the chaconne in Bach’s Cantata No.150 Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich.

Originally dances on a ground bass, both the passacaglia and the chaconne had lost their dance associations by Bach’s day. But to relieve the regularity of the cycle of eight-bar variations on Bach’s theme, Brahms does revert to dance rhythms in the twelfth variation where, with the stark outline of the theme now lost in the curlicues of an elaborate flute solo, he again adopts the graceful step of the sarabande. Song is most impressively represented by a trombone chorale extend­ing over the next two variations. After that the rigour of the cycle is resumed, relaxing only to allude to the lilting opening theme of the work and then accelerating towards an ending that is neither exultant nor tragic but, like Bach’s theme, supremely logical in its own right.

No symphony has a more modest, less formal beginning than Brahms’s Fourth: it opens, without introduction, on the unaccompanied upbeat of a gently lilting dance tune. Dance is, in fact, one of the main concerns of the Fourth Symphony; the others are song and fanfare. You could say that of most symphonies, but the point is worth emphasising in this case to clear the air of the “tragic” and “elegiac” associations so abundantly clustered round the work by decades of criticism which has failed to recognise that it could well be concerned with nothing other than musical issues.

Dance is represented by the lilting opening on violins, fanfare by the transi­tional theme on horns and woodwind, and song by the second-subject melody arching high on the A-string of the cellos. No unmistak­able emotional attitude is adopted until woodwind and first horn intro­duce a new second-subject melody in B major, which is happy but short. Allowing his material to develop freely and spontaneously, Brahms is so successful in his avoidance of heroic effects that the re-entry of the main theme at the beginning of the recapitulation - deprived of its dance rhythm and stretched out in semi-breves in quietly non-committal octaves on woodwind - could be just another of its many variants.

The opening fanfare of the second movement has been described as “hero­ic” but it might also be an invitation (in Phrygian mode) to another dance - an E major sarabande introduced by clarinets, bassoons, and plucked strings. It is not a full-scale slow movement but an Andante moderato proceeding for the most part with the same graciously rhythm­ic step. The lovely B major melody on the cellos is not so much a second subject as a derivative of the main theme, its counterpart in song.

The same points are at issue in the allegro giocoso - a vigorous dance in C major, contrasted with a graceful folk-song second subject. As Brahms said, the movement in general “is fairly noisy with three timpani, triangle, and piccolo.” It is the one playful scherzo, as distinct from lyrical inter­mezzo, in his four symphonies. The reason why he introduced one here at last must be that he needed to offset a finale which he had already written and which, he feared, we the audience would “not have the patience to sit through.”

It could well be that the whole of the Fourth Symphony grew from Brahms’s ambition to write a movement based on the chaconne in Bach’s Cantata No.150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich - an idea which he mentioned to Hans von Bülow some years before the work was written. In that case the minor key chosen for the work would be the inevitable consequence of Bach’s chaconne theme, which begins with the first five notes of a rising minor scale. As reshaped by Brahms into eight notes of even length, the theme is formally presented, one note per bar, on woodwind and brass at the beginning of the last movement.

It would no doubt be overstating the case to find significance in the fact that the chaconne and the passacaglia - and this sequence of thirty or so eight-bar variations is either one or the other - were originally dances. However, to relieve the regularity of the cycle, after the first eleven variations, all in E minor, Brahms does revert to dance rhythms again. In the twelfth variation, where the outline of the theme is lost in the curves of an elaborate flute solo, the meter is changed from 3/4 to 3/2, relaxing the pace of the chaconne to that of a sara­bande. The next three variations continue in the same gracious step and the key changes at last to E major for the clarinet and oboe dialogue and for the trombone chorale extend­ing over two variations. So at this point the chaconne theme is reintro­duced in E minor to restore the rigour of the cycle, which revolves towards a climax in eight more variations - relaxing the tension to allude to the opening theme of the work and then accelerating in a complex of modulations towards a conclusion which is neither exultant nor tragic but supremely logical

Gerald Larner©

No symphony has a more modest, less formal beginning than Brahms’s Fourth: it opens, without introduction, on the unaccompanied upbeat of a gently lilting dance tune. Dance is, in fact, one of the main concerns of the Fourth Symphony; the others are song and fanfare. You could say that of most symphonies, but the point is worth emphasising in this case to clear the air of the “tragic” and “elegiac” associations so abundantly clustered round the work by decades of criticism which has failed to recognise that it could well be concerned with nothing other than musical issues.

Dance is represented by the lilting opening on violins, fanfare by the transi­tional theme on horns and woodwind, and song by the second-subject melody arching high on the A-string of the cellos. No unmistak­able emotional attitude is adopted until woodwind and first horn intro­duce a new second-subject melody in B major, which is happy but short. Allowing his material to develop freely and spontaneously, Brahms is so successful in his avoidance of heroic effects that the re-entry of the main theme at the beginning of the recapitulation - deprived of its dance rhythm and stretched out in semi-breves in quietly non-committal octaves on woodwind - could be just another of its many variants.

The opening fanfare of the second movement has been described as “hero­ic” but it might also be an invitation (in Phrygian mode) to another dance - an E major sarabande introduced by clarinets, bassoons, and plucked strings. It is not a full-scale slow movement but an Andante moderato proceeding for the most part with the same graciously rhythm­ic step. The lovely B major melody on the cellos is not so much a second subject as a derivative of the main theme, its counterpart in song.

The same points are at issue in the allegro giocoso - a vigorous dance in C major, contrasted with a graceful folk-song second subject. As Brahms said, the movement in general “is fairly noisy with three timpani, triangle, and piccolo.” It is the one playful scherzo, as distinct from lyrical inter­mezzo, in his four symphonies. The reason why he introduced one here at last must be that he needed to offset a finale which he had already written and which, he feared, we the audience would not “have the patience to sit through.”

It could well be that the whole of the Fourth Symphony grew from Brahms’s ambition to write a movement based on the chaconne in Bach’s Cantata No.150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich - an idea which he mentioned to Hans von Bülow some years before the work was written. If the words associated with the chaconne in Bach’s cantata - “My days in sorrow God ends in joy” - have any relevance to the sym­phony, it is reflected in the emotional equi­librium achieved by purely musical imagery. The minor key chosen for the work is the inevitable consequence of Bach’s chaconne theme, which consists of the first five notes of a rising minor scale, followed by an octave drop and a rising fourth back to the tonic. Brahms, who felt that it would be “too straight­forward” in that form, inserted a semitone between the fourth and fifth degrees of the scale. In this eight-note form he presents it, one note per bar, at the beginning of the last movement.

It would no doubt be overstating the case to find significance in the fact that the chaconne and the passacaglia (and this movement is either one or the other) were originally dances. However, to relieve the rigour of the cycle of eight-bar variations, all in E minor so far, Brahms does revert to dance rhythms again. In the twelfth variation the outline of the theme is lost in the elaborate curves of the flute solo; the meter is changed from 3/4 to 3/2, which relaxes the pace of the chaconne to that of a sara­bande. The next three variations continue in the same gracious step. The key changes at last to E major for the clarinet and oboe dialogue and for the trombone chorale extend­ing over two variations. So at this point the chaconne theme is reintro­duced in E minor to restore the rigour of the cycle, which revolves towards a climax in eight more variations - relaxing the tension to allude to the opening theme of the work and then accelerating in a complex of modulations towards a conclusion which some call exultant and others call tragic.

Gerald Larner