Violin Sonata No.3 in D minor Op.108 (1886–88)

Brahms completed his Violin Sonata in A major Op.100 and started another in D minor Op.108 during the same holiday on Lake Thun in Switzerland in the summer of 1886. He returned to the same idyllic surroundings to finish the D minor two years later but the serenity so amiably reflected in the earlier work evaded him. The emotional certainty so beautifully expressed in the lyrical and yet uneasy opening theme persists throughout the D minor first movement in spite of its D major ending. As the Adagio demonstrates, major harmonies are no protection from nostalgia, just as in the third movement minor harmonies prove to be no obstacle to wit. Resolution of the ambiguities and contradictions is reserved until the last movement, the agitated beginning of which does not suggest a happy ending. And indeed, as the uncompromising D minor coda confirms, there’s no chance of one.

Brahms started work on his Violin Sonata in D minor Op.108 during the same summer holiday in 1886 as he wrote its predecessor in A major Op.100. He did not complete it, however, until two summers later and, although he was staying in the same idyllic surrounding on Lake Thun in Switzerland, it retains little of the serenity so amiably reflected in the earlier work. Its underlying emotional uncertainty is most beautifully expressed in the lyrical and yet uneasy first subject in D minor. Although the second subject is securely presented in the relative major, its benign influence does not survive the subdued but extraordinarily tense development of the first subject over nagging repeated notes in the bass. While the movement ends in D major, the renewal of the low repeated notes in the coda and the equivocation between minor and major are not calculated to lend conviction to the closing bars.

Nor is the tonality of D major any guarantee of serenity in the Adagio. It is a simple construction based on a lovely, nostalgic melody which is introduced by the violin and which rises to its climax on double-stopped D minor harmonies. It is reintroduced in the tonic only after a touching little episode in F sharp minor – a key which, significantly, is reinstated as the basic tonality of the next movement. So, although the Un poco presto e con sentimento is the scherzo equivalent of the work, it is by no means escapist in intention.

The resolution of the ambiguities and contradictions is reserved until the last movement. The persecuted beginning of the Presto agitato does not suggest a happy ending. There is a more stable idea in C major, introduced by piano alone, and a more cheerful one for the two instruments together in E major. After the first reappearance of the rondo theme in D minor again, the dramatically emotional central episode decides the issue. The two major-key ideas are duly recapitulated but only to be swept aside in the unhappy D minor coda.

Brahms started work on his Violin Sonata in D minor, Op.108, during the same summer holiday in 1886 as he wrote its predecessor in A major, Op.100. He did not complete it, however, until two summers later and, although he was staying in the same idyllic surrounding on Lake Thun in Switzerland, it retains little of the serenity so amiably reflected in the earlier work.

The underlying emotional uncertainty of the Third Violin Sonata is most beautifully expressed in the lyrical and yet uneasy first subject in D minor, the high violin line poised over worrying syncopations on the piano. Although the second subject is securely presented in the relative major, its benign influence does not survive the next section - a subdued but extraordinarily tense development of the first subject over nagging repeated notes in the bass. True, there is a sudden assertion of D major during the recapitulation of the first subject, and the movement does actually end in that key. But the renewal of the low repeated notes in the coda and the equivocation between minor and major are not calculated to lend conviction to the closing bars.

Nor is the tonality of D major any guarantee of serenity in the Adagio. It is a simple construction based on a lovely, nostalgic melody which is introduced by the violin and which rises to its climax on double-stopped D minor harmonies. It is reintroduced in the tonic only after a touching little episode in F sharp minor - a key which, significantly, is reinstated as the basic tonality of the next movement. So, although the Un poco presto e con sentimento is the scherzo equivalent of the work, it is by no means escapist in intention, in spite of its rhythmic ingenuity and its witty modulations in the middle.

The resolution of the ambiguities and contradictions is reserved until the last movement. The persecuted beginning of the Presto agitato does not suggest a happy ending. There is a more stable idea in C major, introduced by piano alone, and a more cheerful one for the two instruments together in E major. After the first reappearance of the rondo theme in D minor again, the dramatically emotional central episode decides the issue. The two major-key ideas are duly recapitulated but only to be swept aside in the unhappy D minor coda.

Gerald Larner©

Brahms started work on his Violin Sonata in D minor Op.108 during the same summer holiday in 1886 as he wrote its predecessor in A major, Op.100. He did not complete it, however, until two summers later and, although he was staying in the same idyllic surrounding on Lake Thun in Switzerland, it retains little of the serenity so amiably reflected in the earlier work. It could be, of course, that this was a purely professional decision. But if Brahms had set out from the first to write a work in direct contrast to the Sonata in A major it would surely have been something much stormier than this often equivocal if ultimately regretful Sonata in D minor.

The underlying emotional uncertainty of the Third Violin Sonata is most beautifully expressed in the lyrical and yet uneasy first subject in D minor, the high violin line poised over worrying syncopations on the piano. Although the second subject is securely presented in the relative major, its benign influence does not survive the next section – a subdued but extraordinarily tense development of the first subject over nagging repeated As in the bass. True, there is a sudden assertion of D major during the recapitulation of the first subject, and the movement does actually end in that key. But the persistent low Ds of the coda and the equivocation between minor and major are not calculated to lend conviction to the closing bars.

Nor is the tonality of D major any guarantee of serenity in the Adagio. It is a simple construction based on a lovely, nostalgic melody which is introduced by the violin and which rises to its climax on double-stopped D minor harmonies. It is reintroduced in the tonic only after a touching little episode in F sharp minor – a key which, significantly, is reinstated as the basic tonality of the next movement. So, although the Un poco presto e con sentimento is the scherzo equivalent of the work, it is by no means escapist in intention, in spite of its rhythmic ingenuity and its witty modulations in the middle.

The resolution of the ambiguities and contradictions is reserved until the last movement. The persecuted beginning of the Presto agitato does not suggest a happy ending. There is a more stable idea in C major, introduced by piano alone, and a more cheerful one for the two instruments together in E major. After the first reappearance of the rondo theme in D minor again, the dramatically emotional central episode decides the issue. The two major-key ideas are duly recapitulated but only to be swept aside in the unhappy D minor coda.

Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770)

Violin Sonata in G minor “The Devil’s Trill” (c1713)

Larghetto affettuoso

Allegro

Grave - allegro assai

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Violin Sonata No.3 in D minor Op.108 (1886-8)

Allegro

Adagio

Un poco presto e con sentimento

Presto agitato

Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840)

Cantabile in D major

Franz Waxman (1906-1967)

Carmen Fantasy (1947)

Violinists have long been associated - in the popular imagination or even in their own minds - with the devil. Tartini ‘s “Devil’s Trill” Sonata is said to have been inspired by a dream in which, having made a pact with him, the composer persuaded the devil to play his violin and heard music of “such perfection and meaning that I could never have imagined anything like it.” On waking, however, Tartini could remember little more it than a series of trills spectacularly sustained over a simultaneously bowed melodic line, which he duly incorporated in his Sonata in G minor. After an innocent siciliano-style first movement and a fiery Allegro, the devil’s trill is featured three times in the Allegro assai sections that alternate with the Grave material in the last movement. If, incidentally, you hear a disproportionately long and ultra-diabolical unaccompanined cadenza shortly before the end you are in all probability listening to a much-used elaboration by Fritz Kreisler.

Although he was an admirer of Paganini, another violinist with devilish associations, Brahms was not much interested in virtuosity for its own sake, and the older he was the less interested he became. Technical bravura would have been entirely out of place in the quietly regretful last of his violin sonatas. Apart from an interesting colour effect in the development section of the first movement, where the same note alternates between adjacent strings, expressive thirds applied to the melodic line in the Adagio, a briefly dramatic episode of multi-stopped chords in the middle of the third movement and a stressful crescendo high on the E string at the climax of the last, the violin writing is essentially modest. It is, however, as eloquent as it is effortless.

Paganini’s Cantabile is not the sort of thing that led an incredulous public to suspect that the violinist-composer must have made a pact with the devil. Scored originally for violin and guitar, it is not a virtuoso piece in the ordinary sense but an example of how effectively he could persuade a violin to sustain an appealingly shapely line - which is a less sensational but no less valuable kind of virtuosity.

For a characteristic example of violin virtuosity in the ordinary sense we need look no further than the Carmen Fantasy by the Hollywood composer Franz Waxman. It was written originally for a film called Humoresque but, after Heifetz had adopted it, Waxman’s colourful score became one of the most popular of the many concert arrangements of Bizet’s music. After a short burst of the toreadors’ march on the piano, the tunes include (in order of appearance) Carmen’s habanera, her unhappy “En vain pour éviter les réponses,” the aragonaise entracte, Carmen’s séguidille, and the gypsy dance “Les tringles des sistres” – all of them introduced and then extravagantly elaborated by the violin.