16 Waltz, op.39
The 16 waltzes, op. 39 are a collection of a total of 16 waltzes that Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) completed for piano four hands in 1865 and dedicated to the music critic Eduard Hanslick .
background
Johannes Brahms completed the 16 waltzes during a stay in Vienna in 1865, even though their creation is likely to go back to his time in Detmold at the end of the 1850s. They are dedicated to the music critic Eduard Hanslick, with whom Brahms was friends. In 1867 the waltzes were published by Rieter-Biedermann .
Because of its popularity, Brahms wrote both an easy and a difficult arrangement of this work for piano with two hands. There is also a version for two pianos for waltzes 1, 2, 11, 14 and 15, which in turn was only published after Johannes Brahms' death. There are tonal changes in the following: The simpler version of the sixth waltz is in C major and not in C sharp major , and dances 13 (C major), 14 ( A minor ), 15 ( A major ) and 16 ( D minor ) were transposed down a semitone in the heavier solo version.
Shape and structure
Formally, all waltzes follow the convention of the ABA form. In terms of their internal structure, Brahms worked out the waltzes very individually: Waltzes No. 1 and No. 10, for example, close dominantly at the end of the first A section (i.e., without modulation), the major waltzes No. 2, No. 5 , No. 8, No. 12 and No. 13 as well as the minor waltzes No. 4 and No. 11, according to a convention, switch to the key of the upper fifth (the waltz No. 4 with ›Picardian‹ brightening of the final chord). Attractive deviations in the iii. Degree in major end the A part of waltzes No. 1 and No. 15 (while the deviation to the third degree in minor waltz No. 16 again corresponds to a convention). The major waltzes No. 6 and No. 14 show an unusual deviation at the end of the A section in the vi. Level, as well as the minor waltz No. 3, which at the end of the A section in the vii. Stage and Major Waltz No. 9, which at this formal position evades into Stage IV. Other peculiarities are a subdominant recapitulation in waltz no. 1 (a compositional concept that can be found in a prominent place in the first movement of the sonata ›facile‹ KV 545 by WA Mozart) as well as some distant and charming deviations in the course of the small waltz compositions ( e.g. in waltzes No. 6, No. 8, No. 9, No. 12, etc.).