Brahms: Symphony No. 4...Brahms began the symphony in 1884 (he was then 51) at Miirzzuschlag in...
Transcript of Brahms: Symphony No. 4...Brahms began the symphony in 1884 (he was then 51) at Miirzzuschlag in...
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EriCH LEINSDORF
Mono LM-3010
Stereo LSC-3010
Produced by Richard Mohr
Recording Engineer: Anthony Salvatore
The mightiest of the four
We are so accustomed to thinking of Brahms’ four sym-
phonies as a sort of indivisible epic totality—a grand sum-
mary of classic symphonic practice, everywhere understood
and honored as such—that it comes as a shock to realize
that this critical unanimity has not always prevailed. Thanks
to the relentless hostility of the Wagnerian faction, the
first person to become highly sensitized to the early divi-
sion of opinion about his symphonies was Brahms himself.
He was well aware, for example, that although Vienna had
greeted his more melodic second and third symphonies
with enthusiasm, this incurably frivolous city had been
decidedly cool toward his first. Exactly the reverse situation
prevailed in intellectually serious Leipzig, where the highly
architectural first symphony had been much more success-
ful than the two subsequent ones.
Brahms was therefore deeply concerned about the im-
mediate public fate of the fourth symphony, of which it
may be said categorically that it is not for the frivolous. It
is perhaps the most complex score that Brahms ever wrote,
and the intellectuality of at Jeast its final movement is as
uncompromising as anything in the history of symphonic
music. Brahms began the symphony in 1884 (he was then
51) at Miirzzuschlag in Styria. As the work neared comple-
tion there in the summer of the following year, the com-
poser’s correspondence began to reveal his misgivings
about the “unusual demands” it might make on the public
sympathy. Early in October of 1885, following the custom
established with his earlier symphonies, Brahms invited his
Viennese friends to Friedrich Ehrbar’s house to hear the
work in an arrangement for two pianos. The response was
not encouraging. The symphony awakened no really whole-
hearted enthusiasm among those most predisposed to
understand and welcome it, and it has been conjectured
by some critics that, except for the intervention of a fortun-
ate circumstance, Brahms might have been tempted at the
time to withhold the Fourth from public performance.
The fortunate circumstance was the interest of Hans
von Bulow, who wanted the work for his Meiningen or-
chestra. Brahms first sent Biilow the third and fourth move-
ments for preliminary rehearsal, following them in person
on October 11 with the balance of the score. For the next
two weeks he drilled the orchestra with the enthusiastic
support of Biilow—plus that of such other early partisans of
the Fourth as the Landgrave of Hesse, the pianist (and
early Beethoven specialist) Frederic Lamond and the newly
Library of Congress Card Numbers R68-2639 (Mono)
and R68-2640 (Stereo) apply to this recording.
famous conductor-composer Richard Strauss, all of whom
attended the first full rehearsal. At length Brahms seems to
have attained a nervous but rather stoic mood about his
prospects—satisfied that the orchestra would represent his
score faithfully but not very optimistic about its probable
public success. |
The premiére took place under the baton of Brahms on
October 25, 1885. The first and second movements were
received by the audience with unqualified approval. The
third movement awakened so vociferous a response that
for a time it seemed unlikely that the concert could pro-
ceed unless Brahms consented to repeat it. This he refused
to do—after all, none knew better than he what his con-
trapuntal final movement had in store for his listeners’
powers of concentration—and he thus deferred until the
end of the performance one of the great audience demon-
strations recorded in the annals of concert premieres. —
Following this triumphant inaugural, Brahms, Bulow and
the Meiningen orchestra promptly—and literally—took the
Fourth on the road. In its initial tour, the work ‘‘played”’
Frankfurt, Siegen, Dortmund, Essen, Elberfeld, Dusseldorf,
Rotterdam, Utrecht, Amsterdam, The Hague, Arnheim,
Krefeld and Bonn. Under Hans Richter, the symphony re-
ceived its Vienna premiére on January 17, 1886. Under the
composer’s direction, its Leipzig premiere came at a Ge-
wandhaus concert on February 18. Considering that he had
now enjoyed a triumphant international progress with his
most problematic major work, Brahms must at this point
have been rather amused by the fact that the reaction of
the last two cities ran true to form. Vienna (except, of
course, for the declared anti-Brahmsians) received the
work with respectful praise but not with all-out rapture.
Leipzig, on the other hand, went overboard for the Fourth
even more than it had for the First, and Bernhard Vogl, the
critic of the Leipziger Nachrichten, observed pointedly that
the “tumultuous and long-continued applause’”’ must have -
compensated Brahms for the ‘‘coolness’’ of some of his
former receptions. Regarding the work’s final movement,
the same critic made a comparison that has since become
standard in exegetic works: “The finale is certainly the
most original of the movements, and furnishes more com-
plete argument that has heretofore been brought forward
for the opinion of those who see in Brahms the modern
Sebastian Bach.”
Like Bach’s Chaconne for violin, the Fourth’s final move-
© 1968, RCA, New York, N.Y. ¢ Printed in U.S.A.
ment is in form a vast passacaglia, a deliberate bid by
Brahms for highest honors in the masterpiece style. Be-
ginning with an eight-note theme that is simply a fragment
of the E minor scale with a single chromatic passing tone,
Brahms produces from it an incredibly elaborate set of
variations—a veritable catalog of contrapuntal virtuosities
on the grandest possible scale. Moreover, observes Vogl,
the movement “is filled with Bach’s spirit,” and “its con-
trapuntal learning remains subordinate to its poetic con-
tents... .”
On April 9, Brahms conducted the Fourth in Hamburg,
and Joseph Sittard, the critic of the Correspondent, pub-
lished the classic 19th-century statement about the relation
of the Fourth to the other Brahms symphonies: “The E
minor Symphony is distinguished from the second and third
principally by the rigorous and even grim earnestness
which, though in a totally different way, marks the first.
More than ever does the composer follow out his ideas to
their conclusion, and this unbending logic makes the im-
mediate understanding of the work difficult. . . . In the
contrapuntal treatment of its themes, in richness of har-
mony and in the art of instrumentation, it seems to us
superior to the second and third. These, perhaps, have the
advantage of greater melodic beauty, a guarantee of popu-
larity. In depth, power and originality of conception, how-
ever, the fourth symphony takes its place by the side of
the first. ... In a word, the symphony is of monumental
significance.”
The passage of 82 years has changed only one conclusion
in the above analysis. Today the “grimly earnest” Fourth is
so irreplaceably installed in the concert repertory that no
real Brahmsian could be persuaded that the work was ever
found all that “difficult.” —ROBERT OFFERGELD
Other RCA Victor recordings by
Erich Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony:
Carter Piano Concerto (Jacob Lateiner, Pianist) * Colgrass As
Quiet As erie Gekg- Semen nb vr ee oe ees LM/LSC-3001
Prokofieff Music from “Romeo and Juliet’ ...... LM/LSC-2994
Beethoven Symphony No. 7 * Coriolan Overture . . LM/LSC-2969
DYNAGROOVE Timings: Side 1-11:54, 11:40 ¢ Side 2—6:04, 9:12
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