Brahms- Symphonies Nos 1 & 2

Brahms’s First Symphony in C minor has always had a symbolic place in 19th-century symphonic music: its long wait till the composer’s middle age at 43 in 1876 invariably seen as the ultimate tribute to the intimidating influence of Beethoven. But the story is not quite as straightforward. Brahms had already temporarily – and impatiently – titled his first orchestral Serenade, Op 11 (completed 1859) a ‘symphony serenade‘ because of its expansive character; and the ‘Allegro’ first movement of the Symphony was actually first completed as early as 1862. Although Brahms’s autograph of this does not survive (only movements 2–4 remain), Clara’s Schumann’s quotation of the familiar opening bars (38–42 of the published score) to Joseph Joachim in a letter in this year, and her description of it as being ‘so interwoven’ suggests that it was essentially the music we know: a driving 6/8 movement of underlying scherzo character cast in sonata form, and made even more economical by striking contrapuntal skill – in which bass and upper part exchange roles and even invert their shapes, adding a new dimension of concentration to symphonic style.