Brahms' Fourth, Allegro non troppo

[(poco) Sforzando]

I'll have to check out that sonata eventually. Btw, did he just change the key signature from C min. to C maj. but write in F# maj. in the C maj. section? 

I honestly don't understand your question.

[greg]

I honestly don't understand your question.

in the 5th bar of that pic, it cancels out the flats..... never mind, i think i understand what he's doing.

[Mark G. Simon]

I'll have to check out that sonata eventually. Btw, did he just change the key signature from C min. to C maj. but write in F# maj. in the C maj. section? 

He's got a four-bar transition to F# minor and he's getting tired of cancelling out flats.

[Mark G. Simon]

Never said it did.

Yeah, I didn't really think you did.

[(poco) Sforzando]

in the 5th bar of that pic, it cancels out the flats..... never mind, i think i understand what he's doing.

Oh, now I see. The basic tonality of the piece is F# minor; he changes key to D in the exposition for the second group and to F# in the parallel passages from the recapitulation. Eb major as a key (and signature) is only briefly used in the development. I suppose the little passage leading back to F# minor is sufficient modulatory that he decided to cancel all flats/sharps in the signature and just use accidentals.

[greg]

I suppose the little passage leading back to F# minor is sufficient modulatory that he decided to cancel all flats/sharps in the signature and just use accidentals.

yeah, that's what it looked like to me when i took a second look.

[eyeresist]

Brahms 4 starts with a melody, a very "melodic" melody, one of the great melodies, in fact.

It's stuck in my head right now. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

wtf lol
i just meant to say that it's not the most typical-sounding opening melody out there. There's not many opening melodies I can think of that use a pattern of only two notes rest two notes, so on for the first 8 measures. It's not a cantabile Brahms opening like his other 3 symphonies, and it doesn't sound like Haydn, either, so that's what makes it interesting.

Actually I think it quite lyric and cantabile myself, but for another example of Brahms writing a melody slightly fragmented with rests, see the intermizzo op. 116/5 (a piece that's made considerably easier if you re-distribute the interlocking chords in the first eight bars or so. Cheating? well, maybe, but it does make the piece much more playable.

http://imslp.org/imglnks/usimg/f/f9/IMSLP01528-Bp31.pdf

[karlhenning]

A musical artifact can be stuck in one's aural memory, and yet not be a melody  0:)

[Brian]

This hardly negates what I said. Wherever he got it from, he made it his own.

This certainly can be said of the finale as well. He really made that Bach tune his own.

[lukeottevanger]

If I understand Greg correctly, he's not saying that this opening melody isn't a great, lyrical melody, but that it's an unusual type of melody, and if that's what he's saying I agree with him. What's unusual about it is that it is so plain and symmetrical in outline, in rhythm, in interval - down a third, up a sixth, down a third, up a sixth, just crotchets and crotchet rests..... As Sforzando says, it's outlining a chain of descending thirds, as happens so frequently in Brahms, especially but not only late Brahms. But here this chain is spelt out with a baldness unlike almost anywhere else, especially unlike the opening of any other Brahms movement (most often Brahms's third chains begin to unravel themselves to maximum length at the peak of a climax or some other cathartic point later in the movement). The melody looks almost like a background analysis of an imaginary higher-level melody in which those bald contours are filled in and complicated. This, in fact, may be the secret of it's potency.

[greg]

Actually I think it quite lyric and cantabile myself, but for another example of Brahms writing a melody slightly fragmented with rests, see the intermizzo op. 116/5 (a piece that's made considerably easier if you re-distribute the interlocking chords in the first eight bars or so. Cheating? well, maybe, but it does make the piece much more playable.

http://imslp.org/imglnks/usimg/f/f9/IMSLP01528-Bp31.pdf

Nice!

[RJR]

I should say that I've played in the orchestra for Brahms' First and Second Symphonies, Double Concerto, and German Requiem.  His music is not easy to pull together, but very gratifying for every section.

Love the Double Concerto. Have a recording of Casals playing back in the 20s. Brahms sounds great on old records, I think.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Third movement is actually my favorite. Should be my alarm clock tone, it's so awesome!

...no offence to magnificent first movement.

[Mood4Classical]

Funny how i passed through the same obsession with the Fourth, but that was after having been obsessed with the last movement of the Third (and the Allegretto as well i should admit) The second has beautiful cello phrasing which gets similar to the 4th. too bad he wrote only 4!