Posted January 6, 2025
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings
Johannes Brahms
(Born in Hamburg, Germany in 1833; died in Vienna, Austria in 1897)
Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Opus 90
- Allegro con brio
- Andante
- Poco allegretto
- Allegro
When Brahms completed his magnificent Third Symphony in 1883, he sent his manuscript to his close friend, Clara Schumann (the widow of composer Robert Schumann). She replied:
… I have spent many happy hours with your wonderful creation… From start to finish one is wrapped about with the mysterious charm of the woods and forests … I hear the babbling brook and the buzzing of insects…
The first movement, Allegro con brio (fast and with spirit), does indeed open as a “wonderful creation,” as glorious surges of sound from the entire orchestra, simultaneously descending and ascending, then split into expansive chords evoking the intensity of spotlights. Overtop sing the violins voicing a series of descending, robust proclamations. Yet lurking behind this radiance lies a sense of shadow and mystery. Through this introduction, Brahms sets the tone for the whole Symphony, by shifting harmonic modes (from major key to minor key), and by establishing the conflict between rapture and disquiet. Most striking in this movement is its vast sweep of moods, from those opening awesome, beaming chords, through wonderment, past moments of unsettling darkness, and lastly, to quietly tender ending that will return as an echo to end the Symphony.
The second movement, Andante (slowly), opens with the woodwinds singing a quiescent hymn, led by the earthy tones of the clarinet. But deeply set into this bucolic beauty are also hints of disquiet. At about one-and-a-half minutes, a series of drifting chordal progressions seem to take us into a misty psychological landscape – comingling a sense of quiet with worry – like afterthoughts of regret. After some rapturous developments of musical ideas, the movement ends with a gentle simplicity.
The third movement, Poco Allegretto (moderately fast), opens with one of Brahms’s most beautiful melodies in the cellos, but he also exploits the major-minor mode shifts that he began in the first movement, and the effect is unsettling and brimming with ambiguity. It’s a remarkably crafty effect as well, because when that lovely cello melody is subsequently played by the French horn (at about four minutes), then in the oboe, and lastly in the upper strings, it’s one of the most bittersweet passages in Romantic music, and a perfect preamble to the magical final movement.
The last movement, Allegro, grows quietly but energetically from deep and somber rumblings into a quickly sparkling effervescence. But then, something rather unexpected unfolds. It’s as though all the disquiet of the previous movements breaks loose at the seams, as if it’s going to tumble into a free-for-all finale. But, in many ways this finale is delightfully backwards and front-end loaded, with all the fanfare and stridency exploding near the beginning, only to simmer, and then, at last, end softly. In a brilliant stroke, Brahms concludes this remarkable Symphony by recalling almost exactly, but much more ethereally, the tender ending bars of the first movement.
© Max Derrickson