The
Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, is a
symphonyA symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
written by
Johannes BrahmsJohannes 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...
. The work was written in the summer of 1883 at
WiesbadenWiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
, nearly six years after he completed his
Second SymphonyThe Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73, was composed by Johannes Brahms in the summer of 1877 during a visit to Pörtschach am Wörthersee, a town in the Austrian province of Carinthia. Its composition was brief in comparison with the fifteen years it took Brahms to complete his First Symphony...
. In the interim Brahms had written some of his greatest masterpieces, including the
Violin ConcertoViolin Concerto in D major, Op. 77 is a violin concerto in three movements composed by Johannes Brahms in 1878 and dedicated to his friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim...
, two overtures (
Tragic OvertureThe Tragic Overture , Op. 81, is a concert overture for orchestra written by Johannes Brahms during the summer of 1880. It premiered on December 26, 1880 in Vienna...
and
Academic Festival OvertureAcademic Festival Overture , Op. 80, by Johannes Brahms, was one of a pair of contrasting concert overtures — the other being the Tragic Overture, Op. 81, written to balance it as its pair...
), and the
Second Piano ConcertoThe 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...
.
The premiere performance was given on 2 December 1883 by the
Vienna Philharmonic OrchestraThe Vienna Philharmonic is an orchestra in Austria, regularly considered one of the finest in the world....
, under the direction of
Hans RichterHans Richter was an Austrian orchestral and operatic conductor.-Biography:Richter was born in Raab , Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire. His mother was opera-singer Jozsefa Csazenszky. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory...
. The shortest of Brahms' four symphonies, a typical performance lasts between 30 and 40 minutes.
Instrumentation
The symphony is scored for two
fluteThe 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, two
oboeThe 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, two
clarinetThe 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, two
bassoonThe 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, a
contrabassoonThe contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
, four
hornsThe 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 ....
, two
trumpetThe 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, three
tromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s,
timpaniTimpani, 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...
, and
stringsThe string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
.
Form
The symphony is in four
movementsA 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...
, marked as follows:
- Allegro con brio (F major), in sonata form
Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
.
- Andante (C major), in 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...
(A B A').
- Poco allegretto (C minor), in ternary form (A B A').
- Allegro (F minor/F major), in a modified sonata form.
History
Hans Richter, who conducted the premiere of the symphony, proclaimed it to be Brahms'
EroicaLudwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 in E flat major , also known as the Eroica , is a landmark musical work marking the full arrival of the composer's "middle-period," a series of unprecedented large scale works of emotional depth and structural rigor.The symphony is widely regarded as a mature...
. The symphony was well received, more so than his Second Symphony. Although
Richard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
had died earlier that year, the public feud between Brahms and Wagner had not yet subsided. Fanatical members of the Wagner cult tried to interfere with the symphony's premiere, and the conflict between the two factions nearly brought about a duel.
After each performance, Brahms polished his score further, until it was published in May 1884. His friend and influential music critic
Eduard HanslickEduard Hanslick was a Bohemian-Austrian music critic.-Biography:Hanslick was born in Prague, the son of Joseph Adolph Hanslick, a bibliographer and music teacher from a German-speaking family, and one of his piano pupils, the daughter of a Jewish merchant from Vienna...
said, "Many music lovers will prefer the titanic force of the First Symphony; others, the untroubled charm of the Second, but the Third strikes me as being artistically the most nearly perfect."
Musical elements
A musical motto consisting of three notes, F–A-flat–F, was significant to Brahms. In 1853 his friend
Joseph JoachimJoseph Joachim was a Hungarian violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. A close collaborator of Johannes Brahms, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant violinists of the 19th century.-Origins:...
had taken as his motto "Free, but lonely", in German,
Frei aber einsamA musical cryptogram is a cryptogrammatic sequence of musical notes, a sequence which can be taken to refer to an extra-musical text by some 'logical' relationship, usually between note names and letters. The most common and best known examples result from composers using ciphered versions of their...
, and from the notes represented by the first letters of these words, F–A–E,
SchumannRobert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Brahms and
DietrichAlbert Hermann Dietrich , was a German composer and conductor, remembered less for his own achievements than for his friendship with Johannes Brahms.Dietrich was born at Golk, near Meissen...
had jointly composed a violin sonata dedicated to Joachim. At the time of the Third Symphony, Brahms is a fifty-year-old bachelor who declares himself to be
Frei aber froh, "Free but Happy". His F–A–F motto, and some altered variations of it, can be heard throughout the symphony.
At the beginning of the symphony the motto is the melody of the first three measures, and it is the bass line underlying the main theme in the next three. The motto persists, either boldly or disguised, as the melody or accompaniment throughout the movement. For the third movement, poco allegretto instead of using a rapid scherzo, standard in 19th century symphony, Brahms has created a unique kind of third movement that is moderate in tempo (poco allegretto) and intensely lyrical in character. The finale is a lyrical, passionate movement, rich in melody that is intensely exploited, altered, and developed. The movement ends with reference to the motto heard in the first movement - one which quotes a motif heard in Schumann's Symphony No 3 ('Rhenish') - then fades away to a quiet ending.
External links
- European archive Copyright free LP recording of Brahms 3rd symphony by George Szell (conductor) and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra (for non-American viewers only) at the European Archive.