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Johannes Brahms
String Quartet in C minor, Op. 51 No 1
String Quartet in A minor, Op. 51 No 2

1998 Simax Classics PSC 1156

The famously self-critical Brahms took almost as long to produce his first mature string quartets as he did to perfect his first symphony. Although we know he had composed a very early Quartet in B flat which he showed to Schumann in 1853, this was subsequently destroyed. He later claimed to have written "more than twenty" string quartets before finally, in 1873, at the age of 40, he published two as his Opus 57. One of these earlier efforts was a Quartet in C minor, composed in 1865-66 and then discarded - possibly a preliminary version of Op. 51 No. 1. There is some evidence to suggest that early forms of both the Op. 51 Quartets may have been played over privately in 1869, and on his manuscript work-list (which does not include unpublished compositions) Brahms noted that the Op. 51 Quartets were completed at Tutzing in the summer of 1873 "for the second time." Further revised that year after more private try-outs, the two Quartets were published with a dedication to Brahms's close friend, the great surgeon and amateur quartet-player, Theador Billroth.

A theme of feverish aspiration launches the first movement, continually surging upward only to fall. Almost immediately this first theme is interrupted by a contrasting idea, more lyrical but full of anxious pathos, so that there is a polarity of action and contemplation within the first subject itself. Altogether this sombre, exhaustively contrapuntal sonata movement is remarkably wide-ranging in its treatment of tonality and in the ceaseless, even obsessive working-over of its salient motifs. The various elements in the different subjects exchange contours and rhythms in a dazzling process of combination and transformation that produces a multiplicity of meaningful resemblances and masterly ambiguities, while the argument oscillotes between hectic passion and a more static, but still restless, sense of melancholy.

After this complex and disturbing movement the next two are overtly simpler and more stable, though hardly carefree. The "Romanze", as its title indicates, has a lyrical, song-like character, with hints of hymn and noctume: yet the whole movement is suffused with pathos Its two alternating tunes are hesitant, their rhythms elusive, and the harmonizations almost chokingly close. The twilit world of the intermezzo-like third movement, with its pair of fretful little themes, its stealthy tread and wandering tonality, brings no real relief, although the contrasting middle section has a ghostly charm.

The finale resumes the first movement's intensive developmental activities, and is as strenuous in its rhythmic vigour. Indeed, its opening theme is a clear variation of the first movement's first subject A compacted sonata design, this dramatic finale conflates the development and recapitulation sections in order to postpone for as long as possible - in fact, until well into the coda - the return of the tonic key of C. Despite teasing hints of the possibility of a major-key resolution, it is fateful C minor that reasserts on iron grip. The last terse cadence is essentially a long-delayed resolution of the work's very first gesture - a remarkable "closing of the circle" which suggests the music is condemned to start over in an endless cycle of striving.

But its companion work, Op. 51 No. 2, had already been heard in Berlin two months before. Brahms often seems to have composed or published works of the some genre in deliberately contrasting pairs, and the A minor Quartet is warmer, more affirmative and relaxed then the tragic C minor. There are no extremes here (all the tempi are "moderate" or "note too fast", though the work's moods are hardly uncomplicated, and its compositional craft is still highly intricate. Despite the dedication to Billroth which it shares with the C minor Quartet, there is ample evidence that the A minor was intended, at least on the purely musical level, as a tribute or homage to Joseph Joachim, whose Quartet gave the Berlin premiere.

In their early twenties, during the few months they spent together as part of the circle around Robert Schumann, Joachim and Brahms had both adopted musical mottoes, supposedly to express their personal philosophies of life. Joachim's was F- A-E, standing for "frei aber einsam" (free but lonely); Brahms's, by contrast, was F-A-F, "frei aber froh" (free but happy). The two friends had also, for several years after, engaged in a musical correspondence, sending each other exercises in Bach and pre-Bach canon and strict counterpoint, mainly to help Brahms develop his compositional technique (in the early 1850s Joachim was already an established composer.)

Now, in the A minor Quartet's first movement, Brahms uses Joachim's F-A-E cryptogram - usually prefaced with the tonica to make a four-note motif - as a motto-theme, frequently in amicable conjunction with his own F-A-F. The figures are combined in canon, in inversions and retrograde, and there are prominent canonic episodes in the other movements as well. So while the C minor Quartet has modernistic leanings in its fluid and protean motivic developments, the A minor gives contrary hints of Baroque devices - in the manner, say, of Bach's Musical Offering. Perhaps in one aspect, the work is meant as a friendly demonstration of the good use to which he had put his youthful studies.

Though these cryptic figures occur at all the important turning-points in the fist movement's argument, the movement as a whole contains a wealth of ideas which once again suggest Schubert rather than Beethoven - but this time Schubert's lyrical vein, not his tragic one. They include a suavely Viennese grazioso second subject with a lusingando (alluring) violin counterpoint. The sonata-form movement has a comparatively brief development section, whereas exposition and recapitulation spread themselves in melodic exploration.

The Andante moderato, in A major, opens with a darkly pensive violin theme which struck Brahms's contemporaries as a spontaneous lyrical outpouring, yet aroused the admiration of Schoenberg by its intricate motivic organization. As ever in Brahms, apparent artlessness conceals tireless artistic effort. The subsidiary material moves into the relative minor for a dramatic 'Hungarian'-style duet for violin and cello (actually in strict canon) against smoky tremolondi: the main theme eventually returns in the "wrong" key, F major, and is eased back to A by the cello. The movement closes in a spirit of uneasy calm.

The Quasi Minuetto (in itself a reference to an archaic style) gives the impression of sad, spiritualized dance-music, virtually removed from physical associations despite the cello's earthy open fifths. The main Minuet idea alternates with a scurrying, gossamer Allegretto vivace, which is itself twice intercalated by a brief but elaborate double-canon variant of the Tempo diminuetto. The finale retains the Minuet's 3/4 time and reshapes its theme into a pugnacious Hungarian dance, doubtless another compliment to Joachim. This tuneful, ebullient movement is formally quite complex, a sonata design with elements of sonata-rondo, and is remarkable for its wealth of cross-rhythms and Brahms' virtuosity in transforming the opening theme. These transformations culminate in a warm major-key version for first violin and cello (another canon!) and a slow variation in pianissimo block chords that leads to the vivacious but severe, A minor conclusion.

Malcolm MacDonald

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