Johannes Brahms

A work reshaped from a symphonic plan amid the upheaval of witnessing Schumann's leap into the river and his death.

• The timpani tremolo (a technique of playing the same note in rapid, trembling repetition) and the violent surge of the strings at the opening of the first movement are said to have been written just after he heard of Schumann's leap.
• On the sketch of the slow second movement he is said to have written a line from the liturgy — a place to listen for the colors of mourning and prayer.
• The third-movement finale is a dialogue in which piano and orchestra chase and answer each other within a Beethovenian structure — symphonic weight stands out more than solo virtuosity.
• It is worth remembering as you listen that the work was hissed by the Leipzig audience at its premiere, yet today is judged in exactly the opposite way.

Chamber music of farewell, written after parting from Agathe, with her name engraved in its notes.

• Early in the first movement, a short figure passed between the second violin and viola is said to spell A-G-A-H-E in German note names — the name "Agathe" set directly into the notes.
• Brahms is said to have told a friend that, where that melody appears and vanishes, he meant that he had freed himself from her.
• A scoring of six strings (two violins, two violas, two cellos) that builds thick harmonies — chamber music, yet with a symphonic sonority.
• The third-movement variations trace a plain theme growing ever richer — a place to hear Brahms's signature idiom of deepening while holding emotion in check.

A requiem that comforts the living, completed as grief for his mother merged with the long-ago death of Schumann.

• Instead of the Latin liturgy, it is woven from German Bible passages Brahms chose himself — its focus is not on praying for the souls of the dead but on comforting those left behind.
• The first movement opens with the low voices of cellos and violas, a dark timbre laid down without violins — a reading that hears loss in it is widely accepted.
• The second movement, "All flesh is as grass," begins in the rhythm of a funeral march (a beat like a slow, heavy tread) and swells into a chorus — often counted as the most overwhelming passage.
• The fifth movement, with its solo soprano, is said to have been added after his mother's death — it carries the line "as one whom his mother comforteth."
• The close of the seventh movement brings back the melody of the first and ends quietly — listen for how beginning and end join into one.

The colors gathered on a youthful journey with Reményi came into the world only after fame had found him.

• No. 5 is the best-known melody — its abrupt shifts of tempo (a rubato that surges forward and pulls back) are said to imitate the playing habits of Gypsy bands.
• Originally written for piano four hands — listen while picturing two players seated side by side at one keyboard, breathing together, and the rhythmic give-and-take becomes all the more delightful.
• Many of the melodies were not Brahms's own inventions but transcriptions of Hungarian and Gypsy tunes popular at the time, which later became the cause of disputes over copyright.
• Lean into the syncopation (rhythms that displace the strong beat) and the sudden dynamic swings with a touch of exaggeration, and the spirit of the original comes alive.

A first symphony born of a long silence, completed over twenty-one years beneath the shadow of Beethoven.

• At the opening of the first movement, while the timpani pound relentlessly on a single note, the strings climb and fall in anguish through chromatic scales (scales moving closely, one semitone at a time) — an introduction often described as bearing the weight of long creative struggle.
• The melody the horn sounds in the slow introduction to the fourth movement is known to quote an alphorn tune (the long horn once played by Alpine herdsmen) that Brahms sent Clara as a birthday greeting.
• Even in its own day, listeners remarked that the hymnlike string theme that bursts forth soon after resembles the Ode to Joy of Beethoven's Choral Symphony — worth recalling, too, is the story of Hans von Bülow calling this work "Beethoven's Tenth."
• Many hear the bright close in C major as a liberation after a long darkness.

A concerto built on trust, written for his lifelong friend Joachim and polished by his advice.

• Written with Joachim in mind, the score bears traces of his advice and his fingerings throughout — it is counted among the most notoriously difficult works for the soloist.
• Of the first-movement cadenzas (the passage where the soloist displays free virtuosity without the orchestra), Joachim's own remains the most widely played to this day.
• In the second movement the oboe first sings the theme, and the violin then takes it up and embellishes it — a movement in which the winds carry unusual weight.
• The third movement dances in lively Hungarian rhythms — some hear in it the colors of his youthful travels with Reményi, belatedly revived.

A warm late farewell, born of the tone of the clarinetist Mühlfeld, who drew him out of retirement.

• Written after Brahms, captivated by the mellow tone of the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, went back on his retirement — the clarinet flows among the string quartet as if warmly enfolding it.
• The moment at the start of the first movement when the clarinet enters quietly in its low register is often likened to the mood of an autumn dusk.
• In the middle section of the second movement the clarinet unfolds a free, Gypsy-style melody (a rubato with a wavering, improvisatory tempo) — regarded as the place where the player's breath is most exposed.
• The fourth movement closes in variation form, and the opening melody of the first movement resurfaces — an ending heard as a backward glance at time that cannot be regained.

His last song cycle, facing death head-on as Clara's own death drew near.

• A song cycle said to have been written just after he learned that Clara Schumann was gravely ill — its texts are Old Testament passages that confront death directly.
• The first song, "For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts," declares in a low, sunken voice and accompaniment that life and death are no different.
• The fourth song sets the passage on love from First Corinthians, taking on a warmth unlike the three before it — the only place in the cycle that closes brightly in a major key.
• Brahms's last song cycle, which some hear as a bridge laid between Clara's death and his own.