When Beethoven died he left behind a legacy that would haunt every composer to follow. Especially in the genres of the symphony and the string quartet , he dominated them to the extent that his name became almost synonymous with the terms. It is no surprise, then, that many composers of the nineteenth century felt intimidated by Beethoven's ghost.

Brahms was no exception. He spent over twenty years as a composer before he finally published his first symphony. Likewise, his first string quartets underwent a gestation period of several years before he felt they were ready for the world. In fact, Brahms once claimed to have written and destroyed no less than 20 quartets before bringing out this one! It is no great surprise, then, that this quartet is so polished and magnificent.

RealAudio Performance:

Hear Movements 1 & 4

Analysis:

A remarkable thing about this c minor quartet is that Brahms has packed every last bit of the music with the main musical ideas. There are no "filler" notes here; everything comes in some way or another from the main motifs. Arnold Schoenberg wrote a famous essay, "Brahms the Progressive", which praised Brahms for creating such a "totally thematic" piece of music.

Brahms' romantic ambition is apparent right from the start. The broad meter, lusty main theme, and driving energy all combine to set the tone for the rest of the piece: a tone of frustration and longing. Even when the second theme arrives the somber mood is not lost... the movement sustains this depressed state all the way into the agitated finale. Even there, the music does not leave with a bang but rather with an exhausted fade-out.

Unlike the old classicists, Brahms took care to make the middle movements have just as much weight as the outer ones. In the second and third movements we are at least treated to some moments of relief, but even these are muted in character. All the while, Brahms incorporates fragments of themes from the first movement, as a way of keeping a sense of unity between movements.

The last movement opens with a bang... perhaps the bang that we never got at the end of the first? Certainly the opening statement sounds like a remnant from the first movement, with that familiar dotted figure. Now all four movements have been joined together naturally through the use of thematic material. The fourth movement is once again an expression of our main themes of frustration and longing... the movement spends most of its time in an unstable state, unable to find a key to call home. Near the end, Brahms teases us a bit, making us think for a moment that perhaps the music will move to C major (a move that would have brought a tone of optimism to the closing of this piece). This expectation is burst, however, when the music launches into a grim, tragic ending that gives a final answer to the searching theme at the very start of the quartet.

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