Sonata No. 1 in G Major Op. 78 for violin and piano                                                   Johannes Brahms
     Vivace ma non troppo
     Adagio
     Allegro molto moderato

Trio in A Minor Op. 114 for clarinet, cello and piano                                                   Johannes Brahms
     Allegro
     Adagio
     Andantino grazioso
     Allegro

                                                                  Intermission

Serenade No. 1 in D Major Op. 11 (reconstruction of original nonet version)                 Johannes Brahms
     Allegro molto
     Scherzo.  Allegro non troppo
     Adagio non troppo
     Menuet I & II
     Scherzo
     Rondo.  Allegro

Aside from being the kind of excruciating pun that we seem powerless to resist, the title of this concert celebrates our practice in the last couple of seasons of celebrating the music of Johannes Brahms and his contemporaries in our November concert.  This is not necessarily the last night that this will happen, but the music we are presenting may well be the last word in Brahms’ brand of Romanticism.  This programme presents two of the mature Brahms’ best-loved works along with a youthful masterpiece very rarely heard in its original form.

The first of Brahms’ three sonatas for violin and piano (at least, the first to survive his ruthless self criticism), the Sonata in G major Op. 78, was born out of tragedy and written in pastoral tranquillity, contradictory influences producing “…a composition full of restrained sweetness, and that longing inwardness which - as so often with Brahms - seems to laugh beneath the tears” (Karl Geiringer).  The tragedy was the death from tuberculosis of Clara Schumann’s son Felix, a gifted poet, following the earlier death of her daughter Julie - with whom Brahms had been infatuated - and the commitment to a mental institution of another son, Ludwig.  At that time Brahms had presented Clara with the Regenlieder, two melancholy songs from his collection Op. 59.  The tranquillity was the summer resort of Pörtschach, a favourite retreat of Brahms, where, he said, “melodies flew thick” and whose sunny serenity contributed to the creation of several major compositions.

There in 1879 Brahms wrote the Sonata, using thematic material from the Regenlieder; hence the subtitle Regen or Regenlied often attached to the Sonata, and originating with Clara Schumann.  The three movements of the Sonata are integrated formally and emotionally to a degree unusual for Brahms; in using song material to achieve this, he followed and surpassed the example of Schubert in his Wanderer Fantasy.  This, along with the deep personal associations of the work and the juxtaposition of lyrical sweetness with emotional urgency, underlain with rhythmic complexity and impetus, mark it out as unique in a catalogue of remarkable compositions.

In 1891, at the age of 58, the still-vigorous Brahms had grown weary of the pressure to produce new music and had announced his intention to retire.  It is an oft-told story that meeting and hearing a performance by Richard Mühlfeld (1856-1907), principal clarinettist with the orchestra of the Duke of Meiningen, inspired Brahms to a new burst of creative activity, leading to the Trio Op. 114, the Quintet Op. 115 and the later (in 1894) the Sonatas Op. 120, his penultimate compositions.  While his retirement would undoubtedly not have lasted in any case, it is nonetheless quite certain that without this stimulus, even if Brahms had composed such significant chamber music at that point in his career, he would never have considered using the clarinet as the central instrument.  Except possibly for Joseph Joachim, no instrumentalist had as great an impact on Brahms as Mühlfeld, to whom he gave such nicknames as "meine Primadonna", "fräulein Klarinette" and "the nightingale of the orchestra".  It has been said that "Perhaps the clarinet pieces are the only true love songs to an instrument Brahms ever wrote" (Jan Swafford).

The Trio in A minor Op. 114 displays a variety of moods and emotions that could hardly be wider (more so than, for example, its cousin the Clarinet Quintet).  The first movement - whose opening theme is said to have been chosen by Brahms for his unwritten Fifth Symphony - sobs with bleak melancholy; the adagio second movement glows with loving warmth; the third, a surpassingly graceful Viennese waltz with a yodeling Ländler middle section, brings to mind Brahms’ close friend and summertime neighbour Johann Strauss Jr.; and the finale, alternating between fiery passion and sardonic wit, exemplifies Brahms’ fondness for “Gypsy” and quasi-Hungarian musical style.

(Following our principle of presenting familiar music with an original slant, in this performance a boxwood Baermann system clarinet - as is appropriate with late 19th century German repertoire - is used, lending extra subtlety of tone and articulation.  For more information, click here for scholarly stuff, or here for a pictorial description.)

(On Tuesday November 26th, as our period instrument alter ego Ossia, we will present a concert at Wilfrid Laurier University as part of their Music at Noon series, in which we perform the Trio Op. 114, along with the Trio Op. 11 by Beethoven.  We will be using instruments - reproduction historical clarinets, a cello with gut strings and appropriate bows, a Classical fortepiano and an original ca. 1848 piano by Streicher - of the types that would have been heard when the music was first performed.  At least in the case of the Brahms, this is undoubtedly the first time in Canada that this has been done.)

While in his early twenties, Brahms spent parts of the winters of 1857-60 at the little royal court of Detmold, as choir director, pianist and piano teacher.  There also he got his first addictive taste for the conducting podium, and spent much time studying orchestral and choral music back to Bach and beyond.  The Serenade in D major Op. 11 was composed during this time, over several seasons and in as many as four different guises.  Apparently it started life as a three or four movement work for wind and string octet; the first full version, with six movements, saw light in 1858.  The scoring was now for nine instruments, one of each Classical orchestral instrument except with the substitution of a second clarinet for the oboe (Brahms evidently opting for cornstarch in preference to chili peppers in such a light recipe).   Inspired by the character of the music and the urging of Joseph Joachim and Karl Bargheer, Brahms' violinist colleague in Detmold, the following year Brahms expanded the instrumentation to a small orchestra (likely with the same winds but multiple strings); finally in 1860 came the scoring for full orchestra, the form in which the work is usually performed.  Brahms toyed with the idea of transforming it into his first symphony, but desisted - being perhaps a little shellshocked by the rocky reception in 1859 of his first piano concerto - and also with billing it as a “Symphony-Serenade”, but the original title won out.

Reports vary as to whether Brahms remained fond of the nonet version of the Serenade and the manuscript score and parts simply disappeared, or whether he deliberately destroyed them.  Either way, the chamber version was never published; consequently, it is only accessible in reconstructions, of which various renditions - varying in detail but not in essence - have been made over the past fifteen years or so.  That printed parts are as yet only available on rental has seriously hampered the adoption of the Serenade into the mainstream chamber repertoire.

The godparents of the Serenade are the symphonies of Haydn, the wind serenades of Mozart, Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony and Septet, and other works of the Classical era.  Haydn’s symphonies have been dubbed “heroic pastoral”, a description that could have been coined for the Serenade in D.  The spirit is bucolic, jovial and predominantly dancelike, the texture relatively light and uncomplicated (bearing in mind that this is Brahms, after all).  The mature orchestral voice of Brahms is present on occasion; certain material sounds understandably like Beethoven; and some passages could have been written by Dvorak, Mendelssohn or Schubert.  The piece is of healthy symphonic proportions, but we don’t notice the passage of time, such is the engaging and natural quality of the music.