Piano Concerto No. 2 (Brahms)
Encyclopedia
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op.
83 by Johannes Brahms
is a composition for solo piano with orchestral accompaniment. It is separated by a gap of 22 years from the composer's first piano concerto
. Brahms began work on the piece in 1878 and completed it in 1881 while in Pressbaum
near Vienna
. It is dedicated to his teacher, Eduard Marxsen
. The premiere of the concerto was given in Budapest
on November 9, 1881, with Brahms as soloist, and was an immediate success. He proceeded to perform the piece in many cities across Europe.
s, 2 oboe
s, 2 clarinet
s (B-flat), 2 bassoon
s, 4 horns
(initially 2 in B-flat bass, 2 in F), 2 trumpet
s (B-flat), timpani
(B-flat and F), and strings
. (The trumpets and timpani are used only in the first two movements, which is unusual.)
The piece is in four movements
, rather than the three typical of concertos in the Classical
and Romantic
periods:
The additional movement results in a concerto considerably lengthier than most other concertos written up to that time. Upon its completion, Brahms sent its score to his friend, the surgeon
and violin
ist Theodore Billroth to whom Brahms had dedicated his first two string quartet
s, describing the work as "some little piano pieces." Brahms even described the stormy scherzo as a "little wisp of a scherzo."
solo, with the piano interceding. The woodwind instruments proceed to introduce a small motif before an unusually placed cadenza appears. The full orchestra repeats the theme and introduces more motifs in the orchestral exposition. The piano and orchestra work together to develop these themes in the piano exposition before the key changes to F Minor (from F Major, the dominant) and the piano plays a powerful and difficult section before the next orchestral tutti appears. The development, like many such sections in the Classical period, works its way from the dominant key back to the tonic while heavily developing themes. At the beginning of the recapitulation, the theme is replayed before a differing transition is heard, returning to the music heard in the piano exposition (this time in B-flat Major / B-flat Minor). A coda appears after the minor key section, finishing off this movement.
and is in ternary form
. Contrary to Brahms's "tiny wisp of a scherzo" remark, it is a tumultuous movement. The piano and orchestra introduce the theme and develop it before a quiet section intervenes. Soon afterwards the piano and orchestra launch into a stormy development of the theme before coming to the central episode (in D major). The central episode is brisk and begins with the full orchestra before yet another quiet section intervenes; then the piano is integrated into the orchestral effect to repeat the theme of the central episode. The beginning section returns but is highly varied.
solo. Brahms rewrote the cello's theme and changed into a song, Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer ("My Slumber grows ever more Peaceful") with lyrics by Hermann Van Lingg. (Op. 105, No. 2). The Cello plays the theme for the first three minutes, before the piano comes in. However, the gentler melodic pieces that the piano plays soon gives way to a stormy theme in B-Flat Minor, When the storm subsides, still in the minor key,the piano plays a transitional motif that leads to the key of G-Flat Major, before the Cello comes in to reprise, in the wrong key, and knowing that it has to get back to B-Flat Major, the piano and the orchestra make a transition to finish off the theme in its original home key of B-Flat Major. After the piano plays the transitional motifs, the piano quickly reprises the middle section in a major key, before playing the final chords to end this beautiful movement.
The first section (bars 1 to 64) is built on two themes: the first and main theme of classical structure (1-8) is first played by the piano and then repeated by the orchestra. The second theme (16-20) is likewise presented by the piano and repeated - and expanded - by the orchestra. A kind of development of the first theme leads to the next section.
The second section (65-164) is built on three themes. Number three (65-73, a minor) is very different from the previous ones: by its minor key and its rhythm, which is Hungarian, in Number four (81-88) is still in a minor and number five (97-104) in F major. These three themes are repeated several times, which gives the section the character of a development.
The third section (165-308) can be seen as a reprise of the first; it is built on the first two themes, but a striking new element is given in 201-205 and repeated in 238-241.
The fourth section (309-376) gives the themes 3, 5 and 4, in that order.
The coda is built on the main theme, but even here (398) Brahms presents a new element, being in a form of a little march, first played by the piano, and then, the orchestra comes in, and trades themes in the march before the final chords.
Opus number
An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
83 by Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
is a composition for solo piano with orchestral accompaniment. It is separated by a gap of 22 years from the composer's first piano concerto
Piano Concerto No. 1 (Brahms)
The Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, is a work for piano and orchestra composed by Johannes Brahms in 1858. The composer gave the work's public debut in Hanover, Germany, the following year.-Form:...
. Brahms began work on the piece in 1878 and completed it in 1881 while in Pressbaum
Pressbaum
Pressbaum is a small town in the district of Wien-Umgebung in Lower Austria, Austria.Since 1964 it has enjoyed the status of a market town ....
near Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. It is dedicated to his teacher, Eduard Marxsen
Eduard Marxsen
Eduard Marxsen was a German pianist, composer and teacher. He was a pupil of Ignaz von Seyfried, Simon Sechter, Johann Heinrich Clasing, and Karl Maria von Bocklet....
. The premiere of the concerto was given in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
on November 9, 1881, with Brahms as soloist, and was an immediate success. He proceeded to perform the piece in many cities across Europe.
Background
The piece is scored for 2 fluteFlute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s, 2 oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s, 2 clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s (B-flat), 2 bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, 4 horns
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
(initially 2 in B-flat bass, 2 in F), 2 trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s (B-flat), timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
(B-flat and F), and strings
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
. (The trumpets and timpani are used only in the first two movements, which is unusual.)
The piece is in four movements
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
, rather than the three typical of concertos in the Classical
Classical period (music)
The dates of the Classical Period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1830. However, the term classical music is used colloquially to describe a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or...
and Romantic
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
periods:
- Allegro non troppo (B-flat major)
- Allegro appassionato (D minor)
- Andante (B-flat major/F-sharp major)
- Allegretto grazioso (B-flat major)
The additional movement results in a concerto considerably lengthier than most other concertos written up to that time. Upon its completion, Brahms sent its score to his friend, the surgeon
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
and violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
ist Theodore Billroth to whom Brahms had dedicated his first two string quartet
String quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
s, describing the work as "some little piano pieces." Brahms even described the stormy scherzo as a "little wisp of a scherzo."
Allegro non troppo
The first movement is in the concerto variant of sonata form. The main theme is introduced with a hornHorn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
solo, with the piano interceding. The woodwind instruments proceed to introduce a small motif before an unusually placed cadenza appears. The full orchestra repeats the theme and introduces more motifs in the orchestral exposition. The piano and orchestra work together to develop these themes in the piano exposition before the key changes to F Minor (from F Major, the dominant) and the piano plays a powerful and difficult section before the next orchestral tutti appears. The development, like many such sections in the Classical period, works its way from the dominant key back to the tonic while heavily developing themes. At the beginning of the recapitulation, the theme is replayed before a differing transition is heard, returning to the music heard in the piano exposition (this time in B-flat Major / B-flat Minor). A coda appears after the minor key section, finishing off this movement.
Allegro appassionato
This scherzo is in the key of D MinorD minor
D minor is a minor scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. In the harmonic minor, the C is raised to C. Its key signature has one flat ....
and is in ternary form
Ternary form
Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form, usually schematicized as A-B-A. The first and third parts are musically identical, or very nearly so, while the second part in some way provides a contrast with them...
. Contrary to Brahms's "tiny wisp of a scherzo" remark, it is a tumultuous movement. The piano and orchestra introduce the theme and develop it before a quiet section intervenes. Soon afterwards the piano and orchestra launch into a stormy development of the theme before coming to the central episode (in D major). The central episode is brisk and begins with the full orchestra before yet another quiet section intervenes; then the piano is integrated into the orchestral effect to repeat the theme of the central episode. The beginning section returns but is highly varied.
Andante
The slow movement is in the tonic key of B-flat Major and is unusual in that it utilizes a celloCello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
solo. Brahms rewrote the cello's theme and changed into a song, Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer ("My Slumber grows ever more Peaceful") with lyrics by Hermann Van Lingg. (Op. 105, No. 2). The Cello plays the theme for the first three minutes, before the piano comes in. However, the gentler melodic pieces that the piano plays soon gives way to a stormy theme in B-Flat Minor, When the storm subsides, still in the minor key,the piano plays a transitional motif that leads to the key of G-Flat Major, before the Cello comes in to reprise, in the wrong key, and knowing that it has to get back to B-Flat Major, the piano and the orchestra make a transition to finish off the theme in its original home key of B-Flat Major. After the piano plays the transitional motifs, the piano quickly reprises the middle section in a major key, before playing the final chords to end this beautiful movement.
Allegretto grazioso
The last movement consists of five clearly distinguishable sections, of which the last is a 'stretto' (faster) coda.The first section (bars 1 to 64) is built on two themes: the first and main theme of classical structure (1-8) is first played by the piano and then repeated by the orchestra. The second theme (16-20) is likewise presented by the piano and repeated - and expanded - by the orchestra. A kind of development of the first theme leads to the next section.
The second section (65-164) is built on three themes. Number three (65-73, a minor) is very different from the previous ones: by its minor key and its rhythm, which is Hungarian, in Number four (81-88) is still in a minor and number five (97-104) in F major. These three themes are repeated several times, which gives the section the character of a development.
The third section (165-308) can be seen as a reprise of the first; it is built on the first two themes, but a striking new element is given in 201-205 and repeated in 238-241.
The fourth section (309-376) gives the themes 3, 5 and 4, in that order.
The coda is built on the main theme, but even here (398) Brahms presents a new element, being in a form of a little march, first played by the piano, and then, the orchestra comes in, and trades themes in the march before the final chords.
Notable Interpretations
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External links
- BBC Radio 3's Discovering Music (includes a link to an .ram file discussing the piece)
- Brahms' Orchestra Works (free music score of this composition available. In public domain.)
- First edition annotated in composer's hand at The Juilliard Manuscript Collection