Two rhapsodies op.79

Johannes Brahms (1889)

The Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79 are piano compositions by Johannes Brahms , 1879 during his summer stay in Pörtschach emerged and on January 20, 1880 Krefeld premiered were.

With the comparative length, the musical content and the dramatic suspense reminiscent pieces in h- and g-minor to the mood world of ballads and consist of the shorter works of this phase from which the written also prevalent in Poertschach op Eight Pieces. 76 began.

Another special feature is the formal framework of the main sonata movement of the G minor rhapsody, which Brahms used here for the last time for his piano work.

To the music

Rhapsody No. 1

In terms of form, the B minor rhapsody (alla breve, agitato ) is a rondo with the structure ABACABA. The ritornello has a Hungarian character, is characterized by a dotted rhythm and triplets and is accompanied by a descending lower voice ( chromatically in the first three notes ), which is also played by the right hand. The left hand creates unrest with descending eighth note motifs and takes over the theme's opening motif in the fifth and ninth bars .

After a transition group playing around the ostinate and dominant F sharp, section B begins with bar 30.

The longing ascending secondary theme in D minor , accompanied by flowing eighth notes, can be found in Edvard Griegs Åse's Death from his incidental music Peer Gynt . After three massive B flat major chords in bar 39, Brahms processes parts of the motif of the first theme in occasional symphonic sonorities up to the fortissimo in bar 60. After two upward rushing 32 runs reminiscent of the practice of the cymbal , he repeats the first theme and leads to the intimate trio ( molto dolce espressivo ) in B major , which begins with measure 94.

Like the second, the similar third theme, enriched by an organ point in the soprano , begins with a fourth step and is accompanied by a continuous eighth note movement in the bass. After the trio, Brahms repeats the ABA section and lets a moving coda follow, which in the bass, accompanied by eighth-note figures in the right hand, takes up the painful second theme in wistful memory. In the slow pianissimo course of the coda, the fourth jump of the theme, now in B major, sounds four times until the comforting finale.

Rhapsody No. 2

The Rhapsody in G Minor (alla breve, Molto passionato, ma non troppo Allegro ) is in all upbeat determined and introduced portions of triols surprised with a Sonata-like implementation . The first eight-bar theme , which is predominantly in major, winds its way up with broken chords that require the hands to reach over for the second and third melody and is accompanied by powerful octave leaps in the bass. Distributed only in the moody-recalcitrant postscript, the opposite triplet figures on both hands and interrupts the flowing movement that is Tongeschlecht Moll reached.

The lyrical side movement, which begins with the chromatic triplet motif ABA, introduces a mood of painful urgency with its alternating notes over a sweeping accompaniment. The final group beginning with bar 20 mezza voce takes up the triplet of the second theme and repeats it, next to throbbing quarters, in ghostly monotony in the middle voice, while the bass can be heard with a monomaniacally ascending octave figure. In the dynamically very variable development that begins with bar 33 , Brahms processes the first and third thoughts, while the cantilena only sounds again in the recapitulation from bar 98.

details

As with many of his later piano works, the naming of this group is rather secondary. Despite the “Hungarian” theme of the ritornello in the first piece, the compositions are not related to the mostly highly virtuoso Hungarian Rhapsodies by Franz Liszt , especially since they lack the rhapsodic-improvisational element that characterizes Liszt's works. The B minor rhapsody should initially be called "Capriccio", which shows the ambivalence of the terminology, which can therefore be viewed as a solution to the problem. Fritz Simrock had admitted to Brahms that he was not quite sure what to call his Piano Pieces op. 76 .

The pieces show some harmonic peculiarities. The tonic plays only a subordinate role compared to the dominant in both works. Already at the beginning of the first rhapsody, the dominant F sharp major, after an initially diminished sound, only dissolves into the tonic in B minor for a moment on the second attempt, but after chromatic sequences and modulations from bar 9 it soon reaches F sharp minor, the in this way acquires a tonic meaning.

In the second piece Brahms surprises the listener after the dominant prelude with the fallacy of the counter - sound in E flat major instead of the expected G minor. The development, in turn, is tonic and thus contradicts the expectation of the sonata form to move as far away from the tonic as possible in this part of the sentence.

literature

• Katrin Eich: The piano works, piano pieces II , in: Brahms-Handbuch, ed. Wolfgang Sandberger, Metzler, Weimar 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-02233-2 , pp. 362–363

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Katrin Eich: Die Klavierwerke, Rhapsodien op. 79. In: Brahms-Handbuch, Ed. Wolfgang Sandberger, Metzler, Weimar 2009, p. 363
2. ↑ Otto Schumann: Johannes Brahms, the smaller piano works. In: Handbuch der Klaviermusik, 4th edition. Wilhelmshaven 1979, p. 497
3. ↑ Johannes Brahms, 2 Rhapsodies op. 79. In: Harenberg Piano Music Guide, 600 works from the baroque to the present, Meyers, Mannheim 2004, pp. 207–208
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Johannes Brahms, 2 Rhapsodies op. 79. In: Harenberg Piano Music Guide, 600 works from the baroque to the present, Meyers, Mannheim 2004, p. 208
5. ^ So Peter Hollfelder : Johannes Brahms. In: The great manual of piano music, special edition for the Nikol Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 1996, p. 190
6. ^ So Otto Schumann: Johannes Brahms. In: Handbuch der Klaviermusik, 4th edition. Wilhelmshaven 1979, p. 497
7. ^ Constantin Floros : Studies on Brahms` piano music - Schumann models and techniques in Brahms. In: Brahms Studies, Volume 5, Johannes Brahms Society, Hamburg 1983, p. 34
8. ↑ So Katrin Eich: The piano works, Rhapsodien op. 79. In: Brahms-Handbuch, ed. Wolfgang Sandberger, Metzler, Weimar 2009, p. 362
9. ↑ So Katrin Eich: The piano works, Rhapsodien op. 79. In: Brahms-Handbuch, ed. Wolfgang Sandberger, Metzler, Weimar 2009, p. 363