Piano quintet (Brahms)

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The Quintet in F Minor for two violins, viola, cello and piano op. 34 completed Johannes Brahms in the summer of 1864, published it in 1865 with a dedication for music-loving Princess Anna of Hesse , 1867 Countess of Hesse.

History of origin

Brahms began the work in August 1862 in Hamm near Hamburg and finished it in Vienna in 1864 . It was originally planned as a string quintet with the unusual instrumentation of Franz Schubert's string quintet in C major D 956: 2 violins, 1 viola and 2 cellos. In this version, still without a finale, the piece is mentioned for the first time in a letter from Clara Schumann to Brahms, written on August 29, 1862 in Interlaken . In it, she thanks for a “beautiful broadcast” from Brahms and has therefore been looking forward to “the quiet enjoyment of your quintet, which looks rich” for some time.

Brahms then circulated the manuscript of the complete work among his friends, with Joseph Joachim in particular requesting that some “harshness” be changed.

From Clara Schumann's letter to Brahms of March 10, 1864, it emerges that the latter had meanwhile reworked the string quintet into a “duo”, ie the Sonata in F minor for two pianos op. 34b. Together with the pianist Carl Tausig , he premiered it on April 17, 1864 in a concert at the Vienna Singing Academy.

In the summer of 1864 - during Brahms' stay with Clara Schumann in Baden-Baden - both played the sonata for two pianos of the later Landgravine Anna von Hessen. She was so enthusiastic about it that Brahms dedicated the work to her and gave her the autograph. It is now in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York .

In return, Brahms received from Anna von Hessen the autograph of Mozart's famous G minor symphony KV 550 in her possession .

At the end of October 1864, the letters first mentioned a piano quintet . The first demonstrable performance took place on June 12, 1865 in Basel in the apartment of the Riggenbach-Stehlin couple, with Brahms at the piano.

The first edition of the piano quintet was published by J. Rieter-Biedermann in December 1865, and the sonata for two pianos was also published by the same publisher in December 1871 . Both versions are dedicated to Anna von Hessen.

Instrumentation and sequence of movements

Brahms' piano quintet is written for the same instrumentation as Robert Schumann's piano quintet in E flat major op.44 and consists of four movements:

  • Allegro non troppo (F minor)
  • Andante, un poco Adagio (A flat major)
  • Scherzo. Allegro (C minor)
  • Final. Poco sostenuto - Allegro non troppo - Presto, non troppo (F minor)

literature

  • Margit L. McCorkle , Johannes Brahms. Thematic-bibliographical catalog raisonné , Munich 1984, pp. 121–126
  • Brahms Handbook , ed. by Wolfgang Sandberger, Stuttgart-Kassel 2009, p. 408ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, letters from the years 1853–1896 , ed. by Berthold Litzmann , Leipzig 1927, Volume 1, p. 405
  2. ^ Renate and Kurt Hofmann, Johannes Brahms as pianist and conductor. Chronology of his work as an interpreter , Tutzing 2006, p. 81

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