Violin Sonata No. 1 (Brahms)

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The Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major op.78 is the first independent work for these instruments that Johannes Brahms published. He had previously written the scherzo of the FAE sonata and unpublished violin sonatas, which Robert Schumann had mentioned in his 1853 essay Neue Bahnen . He wrote the G major sonata in the summer of 1878 and 1879 immediately after completing the violin concerto in Pörtschach am Wörther See ; In terms of content, however, the sonata is closer to the 2nd symphony, composed two years earlier, than to the violin concerto.

construction

Brahms dispenses with a second (dance-like) middle movement in the sonata in order to give a contour to the fundamentally three-part structure of the work as a whole. The outer movements clearly relate to one another through the pitch and rhythm of the opening motif, and the slow middle movement is again divided into three parts.

  • 1st movement, Vivace ma non troppo, G major, 6/4 time, 243 bars
  • 2nd movement, Adagio / Più andante, E flat major / E flat minor, 2/4 time, 123 bars
  • 3rd movement, Allegro molto moderato, G minor / G major, 4/4 time, 165 bars

The first movement in sonata form begins mezza voce with a dotted theme that strikes the keynote of the work and is at the same time the core motif of all movements. The secondary theme is also under the spell of the core motif, but has an even more vocal effect.

The Adagio has a simpler, but perhaps even stronger expression with its open-eyed theme, the balanced voice-over (the violin sometimes has two voices) and the mood of the landscape towards the end; The Più andante embedded in this pastel drawing with the rhythmic core motif transformed into a funeral march is particularly moving . When Brahms received news of the death of his godson Felix Schumann in February 1879, he sent a letter to Clara Schumann with the beginning of what was then still called Adagio espressivo .

The decisive G minor in the 3rd movement is quite unusual. The actually “gloomy” parallel key of the tonic in G major has a relaxed, calm mood. A longer middle section in the subdominant E flat major takes up the theme of the 2nd movement again. Tranquillo and still in E flat major, the dotted core motif returns. Più moderato and dolcissimo , the movement only turns into the carefree G major on the last pages - again with the theme of the 2nd movement. Here Brahms quotes the melody of his songs pair op. 59/3 ( Rain Song ) and Op. 59/4 ( echo ). The 60-year-old Clara wrote to the 46-year-old Brahms:

“After the first fine, charming movement and the second you can imagine the delight when I found my enthusiastically beloved melody with the delightful eighth note movement in the third! I say mine because I don't believe that a person feels this melody as blissfully and wistfully as I do. "

- Clara Schumann : Letter to Brahms dated July 10, 1879

Quotes

Otto Emil Schumann wrote about the three violin sonatas by Brahms :

“These works stand before us quietly, deeply glowing, mature creations of the mature man. Even today they are hardly won over for the concert hall (apart from the D minor work). They are and will remain house music at the highest artistic level. When one of the sonatas appeared, Billroth said that her feelings were too subtle, too true and too warm, her inwardness too warm for the public. This judgment still applies today - at least for two of the sonatas. "

- Otto Emil Schumann (1983)

expenditure

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Christian Martin Schmidt: Johannes Brahms . Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 1994. ISBN 3-15-010401-7
  2. a b c Otto Emil Schumann: Handbook of Chamber Music . Herrsching 1983, p. 295
  3. Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms: Letters from the years 1853-1896. Edited by Berthold Litzmann . Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel 1927. Second volume, p. 166