Brahms EARL WILD Sonata No. 3 Op. 5 Four Intermezzi Ballade Op. 118 Rhapsody No. 2 Paganini Variations (B(BOOKS II && II)II) (1833-1897)

In 1888, when Johannes Brahms was 55 and had already composed his , concertos, the Requiem — indeed, most of the music on which his reputation rests — he wrote to : “It is quite a different approach to write for such instruments as one only knows from hearing as to write for an instrument that one knows thoroughly, as I know the piano, whereby I am entirely sure of what I write and why I write it in this way.” The piano was Brahms’s beloved instrument from the beginning, and to the end it remained at the center of his musical life. It was the instrument on which he received his only sustained formal training; it was his means of earning an income from the age of fourteen, when his schooling ended, until the mid- 1870s, when he could live comfortably on his success as a composer; it was the instrument by which he advanced his career through public performances and for performances musicians and for influential music lovers; it was, moreover, the instrument by which he advanced his career through private perfor- mances for musicians and for influential music lovers; and throughout his oeuvre it was his principal means of musical expression, whether as a solo instrument or in ensembles. It is natural for us now, more than a hundred years after Brahms’ death and with his reputation largely solidified, to think first of the Master of Vienna — the bulky figure with the heavy gray beard and an air of irrefutable importance. This is the monumental Brahms, who by the time he was forty-four had already been referred to as “the third B”(by Hans von Bülow, the pianist and conductor who also dubbed Brahms’s First “Beethoven’s Tenth”), the composer of four mighty symphonies, the German Requiem, the extraordinary piano concertos, the great violin concerto, as well as the Double Concerto for Violin and Cello, the imperishable works for varied chamber ensembles, over 200 lieder, so many of them remark- able for their beauty and immediacy, the variegated body of vocal and choral compositions, and the exceedingly rich, if relatively compact, legacy of music for solo piano. However, in order to appreciate the crucial role of the piano in Brahms’ life it may be helpful to imagine the composer first in 1840, as a slight but exceptionally beautiful seven year-old child, with long blond hair, lively blue eyes and delicate features, when he first began to study the piano; and in 1853, at the time of his fateful meetings with and the Schumanns, when Brahms, now twenty and barely able to keep pace with his own rampaging creativity, still looked

– 2 – and sounded more like an angelic choirboy than a young man on the threshold of greatness. At the age of three, Brahms displayed unmistakable musical aptitude: absolute pitch, the ability to recall and faithfully mimic music, and an obvious intoxication with music. His father, Johann Jacob — himself a versatile if uninspired profes- sional musician — recognized these signs of musicality and was eager to encourage and cultivate his son’s abilities. He hoped that Johannes would carry on in his trade and one day achieve financial security and social respectability by earning a perma- nent seat in a horn or string section of the Hamburg Philharmonic. Lessons for Brahms began as he neared four, with his father teaching him how to play popular songs and dance music on the violin, cello, and the valveless Waldhorn. (Brahms retained a special fondness for the tone of the Waldhorn, and he indi- cated his preference for its use, rather than the newer French Portrait of Brahms as a horn, in his Horn Trio, Op. 40 and elsewhere in his work.) 7 year-old child by Jean-Joseph Brahms did not advance meteorically — at least not in the near-miraculous way that Mozart, Beethoven and Bonaventure Laurens Mendelssohn had. Still, he was precocious in a remarkable way: he seemed to know from early childhood that he wanted to compose music and that he needed to learn the piano. From about the age of five, Brahms pleaded steadily with his doting but financially strapped parents for piano lessons. Johann Jacob Brahms was probably the first person to witness the musical self-awareness and steely persistence sometimes bordering on obstinacy that would forever character- ize Johannes. To his credit he yielded to his son’s relentless pleas for piano lessons. In 1840, the seven-year-old Brahms began his piano studies with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel, the first of the two superb teachers in Hamburg who nurtured the boy’s talents with discipline and abiding affection. Cossel was an able pianist, a kind man, and a meticulous teacher. Teacher and stu- dent quickly bonded, and the devoted Cossel, who recognized something special in the child, began to coach Johannes on an almost daily basis, saturating him with the scales, exercises and sonatas of Czerny, Cramer and Clementi. Cossel saw to it that Brahms had a solid foundation in the technical and analytical aspects of play- ing. But he also impressed on his receptive student that music was more than merely a trade: it was, – 3 – or should be, a special vocation. In addition to excellent craftsmanship, which was a prerequisite for both players and composers, it was a musician’s responsibility to “express what the heart feels.” Brilliant execution, Cossel stressed, must never be detached from musical understanding and expressiveness; the fingers must work in unison with the intellect and the heart. In time, Johannes began to implore Cossel to teach him composition as well as playing., and as Cossel observed his student’s remarkable musical instincts, his conviction grew that Brahms’ talent deserved a more resourceful teacher than himself. He hoped that his own teacher, Eduard Marxsen, would take over the boy’s music education; but Marxsen, impressed though he was by the boy’s audi- tion, declined Cossel’s initial requests. Brahms performed in public for the first time in 1843, when his father arranged a private benefit concert to raise money for Johannes’s scholastic education and to show off his talented ten-year-old son. The program included a piano quartet by Mozart, a quintet for piano and winds by Beethoven, and a virtuoso piano etude by Henry Herz. Brahms played well enough to attract the interest of a pro- moter, who saw an opportunity for riches to be made on a concert tour of the United States featuring Johannes as a wunderkind, as “another Mozart.” The idea thrilled Johann Jacob but it horrified Cossel, who understood the emotional harm that too often accompanied the careers of child prodigies. A desperate Cossel turned again to Eduard Marxsen. He argued that Johann Jacob could be per- suaded to turn his back on the promoter’s plan only if a musician of Marxsen’s reputation joined his side of the issue and also, as an incentive, agreed to teach Johannes. This time Marxsen consented. Eduard Marxsen (1806-87) was then Hamburg’s leading musical figure: its preeminent teacher, pianist, and composer. He was a broadly cultivated man, with an agile intellect, who opened his exten- sive library to Brahms, encouraged his predisposition to read, and guided the boy’s intellectual as well as his musical development. Though Marxsen continued to monitor Johannes’s rigorous piano studies, he recognized distinctive qualities in Brahms’ youthful compositions and came to share Brahms’ belief that it was as a compos- er, rather than as a pianist, that he would become famous. The emphasis of their work gradually shift- ed to composition and theory. Marxsen’s musical deities were Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. But above all he wor- shipped Bach and Beethoven — as would Brahms — and he steeped his avid, sponge-like pupil in their work. He sought to ensure that Brahms knew these composers’ music thoroughly and that he also assimilated the “eternally incorruptible” forms on which their work was built: sonata, theme and vari- ations, fugue, canon, and rondo. He taught Brahms to revere these forms without feeling limited or entrapped by them: Brahms must become so comfortable with these forms that he could freely exploit and revitalize them towards his own ends, put them at the service of his own musical voice. Marxsen – 4 – put it succinctly: he hoped to “rear a priest of art, who should preach in new accents what was sublime, true, and eternally incorruptible in art.” Marxsen would have been delighted by an indirect tribute to his teaching abilities from Clara Schumann, who in an 1860 diary entry commented on Brahms’ ease and freedom with classical forms: “Interesting talk with Brahms on form. How it is the older masters who are perfect in their use of form, while modern compositions are confined within the most rigid small forms. He, himself, emulates the older masters and especially admires Clementi’s large, free employment of form.” Brahms’ ability to invigorate the traditional forms made an impression even on , an egotist who was so self-absorbed that he rarely praised other living composers, especially Brahms, whom he viewed as a rival. Yet, after hear- ing Brahms’ Handel Variations, Wagner was forced to acknowl- edge, “One sees what may still be done in the old forms when someone comes along who knows how to use them.” Brahms as a young man Marxsen himself was so impressed by his remarkable stu- dent that when Mendelssohn died in 1847, he presciently observed, “A great master of the musical art has gone hence, but an even greater one will bloom for us in Brahms.” Likewise, Brahms remained so devoted to his teacher (who, like Cossel, never accepted a fee) that years later he continued to send drafts of his new compositions to Marxsen for his suggestions prior to publication. This was more than a kind but perfunctory gesture: Brahms always valued and sometimes followed Marxsen’s informed advice (which was instrumental in helping to shape A German Requiem, Op. 45, 1869). On the score of his Second Piano Concerto in B flat major (Op. 83, 1882), Brahms wrote, “Dedicated to his dear friend and teacher Eduard Marxsen.” Marxsen did not wish to rush Brahms’ career as a soloist, to risk prematurely subjecting his sensi- tive pupil either to the pressure of performing before the public or exposing him to the potential harm of adverse criticism. Marxsen decided it was wise to give Johannes a chewable size bite of concert life. On November 20, 1847, and without fanfare, Brahms participated in a benefit concert in Hamburg that also featured other artists, where he played ’s virtuosic Fantasy on Themes from Bellini’s “Norma”. His playing seems to have attracted no public reaction. A week later he performed the same work in concert, again without stimulating any critical response. – 5 – A more serious test for Brahms came with a recital he gave on April 14, 1849, shortly before his six- teenth birthday. This concert was advertised in a local newspaper and included two works that require considerable virtuosity and musicianship: Thalberg’s virtuoso Don Juan Fantasy and Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata. Brahms’s playing appears to have made a generally favorable impression, but it failed to generate the kind of enthusiasm that would encourage anyone aspiring to a virtuoso career. Paradoxically, the temperate critical response may privately have come as something of a relief, rather than as a devastating setback, to Brahms and Marxsen for the same unspoken (perhaps uncon- scious) reason. Though Brahms would become talented enough to command respectful attention and (importantly) fees as a concert pianist, he could not challenge many of the extremely talented virtu- osos of his time for mass appeal. But free of the constraints of a virtuoso career — the constant prac- tice, the wearying travel, the physical and emotional costs of performing before demanding audiences and critics in the fiercely competitive world that successful virtuosos inhabit — Brahms would have correspondingly more time and energy to study and compose. Brahms and Piano Technique We will return to the question of what kind of pianist Brahms was, but it is safe to deduce that by midway into his teens he was at least a very good pianist. It also seems clear that he did not possess either the temperament, the stage charisma or the kind of spectacular virtuosity that combine to ele- vate a pianist above the level achieved by many talented players and into the realm reserved for special virtuosos. Brahms had an abiding interest in keyboard technique. It concerned him first as a musician — that is, the musical (not the theatrical) ends to which keyboard mastery could be put, and also as both a performer and teacher. Over a period of years, Brahms also composed a series of piano exercises, which he gathered as a set called 51 Studies and published (without opus number) in 1893. These studies, which have relatively little musical value and were never intended for public performance, have been described as “an athlet- ic training ground for finger equality through sequential mechanical rigour rather than free artistic application” — they are intended primarily to develop the pianist’s digital strength, flexibility and inde- pendence. Brahms wrote these exercises to develop his own skills and he shared them with his students. Of greater musical value are the Five Studies (based on themes by Chopin, Weber and Bach) pub- lished in 1869 and 1878, the most notable being his arrangement for left hand of Bach’s great Chaconne (from the second Partita for Unaccompanied Violin) — it is formidable both as a tribute to Bach and as a challenge to pianists, and it rewards comparisons with Busoni’s well known and more

– 6 – voluptuous arrangement of the music for both hands. Nowhere is Brahms’ concern with technique better known or more brilliantly addressed than in his Studies for Piano, Op. 35, which is almost universally known by the subtitle, Variations on a Theme by Paganini. Brahms, the Piano and the Age It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the piano during the nineteenth century. The unmatched versatility of the piano — which could simulate the grandeur of an or the inti- mate stirrings of a gentle love song — gave it stature as a solo instrument and as an instrument that could participate in virtually any conceivable ensemble; it could be played in concert halls or in par- lors; and a great many composers — even those like Wagner who were not talented pianists — com- posed at the piano. Moreover, at a time when were neither ubiquitous nor often adventurous, piano reduc- tions, transcriptions and paraphrases became the means by which musicians and amateurs alike often heard orchestral and operatic scores that they could not hear in concerts. Brahms was an avid concert- goer, but his vast knowledge of music (past and present) came mainly from published scores, which he usually studied at the piano. During the thirty-four years Brahms was settled in Vienna, a reigning music capital, he would have had only thirteen opportunities to hear Beethoven’s Ninth and it would have taken a decade for an opportunity to hear all nine of the symphonies played professionally. The Romantic Age also gave birth to the idea of the artist-as-(often solitary)-genius and it came to celebrate great virtuosos as heroes. Niccolò Paganini created this mold for musicians, but was music’s first international superstar and the personification of this idea (it was the poet Heinrich Heine, a friend of Liszt’s, who coined the word “” to describe the frenzy the great pianist aroused). Liszt became famous for his breathtaking piano virtuosity. His huge repertoire included his brilliant piano transcriptions and paraphrases of everything from Bach to the symphonies of Beethoven to the operas of Wagner. Liszt’s has been unfairly impugned by those who have seen him merely as a self-glorifying show- man. In fact, Liszt’s motives were many and sometimes mixed: in addition to providing an opportu- nity for the great pianist to demonstrate previously undreamt of virtuosity, while at the same time expanding perceptions of the instrument’s range (reason enough for audiences to pack his every recital and for musicians to pay attention), he often performed his piano arrangements as a means of prose- lytizing for composers whose works were all but unknown and unlikely to be heard in concerts any- time soon. When Schumann wrote his enthusiastic essay about Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique in

– 7 – 1835, his detailed analysis of the music derived from studying Liszt’s astonishingly faithful piano tran- scription of Berlioz’s rich orchestral score. If, as some historians claim, the arts were king during the Romantic 19th century, it is arguable that by the middle of the century music had become king of the arts — “the art to which the other arts aspired,” as Walter Pater put it. Sustained peace and prosperity in Europe since the Congress of Vienna (1814) had led to the emer- gence of a growing, newly affluent and more widely educated middle class. The 1860s and ‘70s wit- nessed an explosion in the sale of pianos for home use due to a combination of unprecedented musi- cal literacy throughout Europe, the rapid advances in piano technology, and the concomitant ability of manufacturers to mass produce and sell affordable pianos. Pianos were the principal means by which music was made and shared. As classes in music appreciation proliferated throughout Europe, the piano was used by teachers to illustrate their lectures and by others to pursue their musical interests. The piano was also the era’s nearest equivalent of the modern stereo, and its popularity created an enor- mous demand for sheet music. The Piano as Income It wasn’t until the mid-1870s, that Brahms could afford to live comfortably solely on the fees and royalties he earned from his compositions. Before that his ambitions as a composer were neither under- stood nor encouraged at home, where his parents’ ideal for their son was a secure middle-class family life based on income from a reliable trade. He was under pressure from the age of fourteen to help pay his own way and contribute to his fam- ily’s resources; his continuing musical education and his early essays in composition had to be pursued in his free time. In his teens, Brahms worked as a piano teacher, and as a pianist he performed in restau- rants, inns and dance halls, as well as in theaters, where he provided background music. In his twen- ties, his primary sources of income were his relatively slight fees as a piano teacher and concert pianist. Another source of income became available to Brahms in 1849, when Marxsen introduced him to a music publisher in Hamburg that paid Brahms (and others) for pseudonymously composing piano pieces and making piano arrangements of popular songs and dances that could be played at home by a public insatiable for amusement and entertainment. One publisher would make a fortune on Brahms’ enormously popular Hungarian Dances, which he wrote in two best-selling versions: for solo piano and for piano four hands. Though juggling all of these jobs was thankless and tiring, modern scholarship has discredited the long-standing canards that young Brahms grew up in abject poverty and was forced to play in seedy

– 8 – waterfront dives and brothels, where, he was supposedly exposed to all manner of vileness and degra- dation, including sexual abuse, at the hands of drunken sailors and prostitutes who could not resist making a plaything of the pretty young boy. Though Brahms had bouts with severe melancholy — especially from a loneliness deriving from his psychological inability to enter into lasting, intimate rela- tionships with any of the women he loved — his emotional scars cannot be traced to these biograph- ical fictions. Brahms as Piano Teacher Brahms apparently did not get much enjoyment or remuneration from teaching the piano, but we get the impression from his students’ accounts that he brought passion to his lessons that were expressed in his thoroughness and discipline. Brahms’ students from the early 1870s confirm that (like Beethoven, Chopin and Schumann) he relied on teaching, and himself playing, Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum to develop and maintain a secure technical and musical foundation. Florence May (a student of Brahms whose two volume biography of her mentor appeared in 1905) remembered, “neatness and equality of finger were imperatively demanded by him...but as a prepara- tion, not an end... Whatever the music I might be studying ...he would never allow any kind of ‘expres- sion made easy.’ He particularly disliked chords to be spread unless marked so by the composer.” And Eugenie Schumann, the youngest daughter of Robert and Clara Schumann, recounted that Brahms “had thought about ...training and about technique in general much more than my moth- er...He made me play a great many exercises, scales and arpeggios as a matter of course, and he gave special attention to the training of the thumb, which, as many will remember, was given a very impor- tant part in his own playing... In all exercises he made me play the non-accented notes very light- ly...carefully executed, first slowly, then more rapidly, and at last prestissimo... [Syncopations] had to be given their full value... I could never play them emphatically enough to please him...he made me see things which I had hitherto passed without noticing, and of which I never again lost sight.” Advancing with the Piano Brahms had built a modest reputation in Hamburg, and periodically he was invited to play as an accompanist at the private soirees of the well to do. In August of 1850, the flamboyant violinist Eduard Reményi asked Brahms to accompany him in a private concert at the home of a local businessman. Reményi was a political refugee from Hungary. He was born Eduard Hoffmann and had adopted his new name better to symbolize his allegiance to the struggle for an independent Hungary (and one

– 9 – may surmise from his histrionic temperament for its theatrical value as well). He was a virtuoso violinist whose concerts were invariably highlighted by his flashy transcriptions and especial- ly by his virtuosic arrangements of Hungarian dances alla zin- garese (in the gypsy style). The pairing worked. Reményi respected Brahms’ musician- ship and his deference as an accompanist; and Brahms was grate- ful for the opportunity to work with a musician of stature who might also introduce him to people who could advance his career. Brahms was increasingly drawn to the colorful, powerful- ly rhythmic, sometimes fast and fiery, sometimes languorous and haunting, but always passionate gypsy-style repertoire. He was avidly absorbing the music both from working with Reményi and from socializing with the violinist and his circle of fellow Hungarian exiles. They spent hours in cafes, drinking beer or coffee, chain-smoking cigars, and listening to gypsy bands. (Brahms continued the practice years later when he settled in Brahms at 20, in 1853, with Vienna.) The influences of Zigeuner music — its flavors, its violinist Eduard Reményi emphatic accents and mixed rhythms, its colors and its expres- sive freedom — are often discernable in Brahms’ music. Reményi disappeared to Paris and America for a while, but returned to Hamburg in December 1852, at which time he and Brahms resumed their association. In April 1853, the two set off on a con- cert tour, mixing Beethoven, Vieuxtemps, and some of Brahms’ own work, with Reményi’s dazzlers from his alla zingarese repertoire (to which Brahms contributed his own piano accompaniments). If Reményi had done no more than greatly deepen Brahms’ pre-existing appreciation of Hungarian national dances and folk music, Brahms’ debt to Reményi would have been substantial. However, it was agreed when they set out on the tour that they would stop in Hanover to visit with Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), who was then music director at Hanover’s royal court. Reményi knew Joachim from their childhood days as violin students in Vienna and, like Reményi, Joachim derived from a Hungarian Jewish background and felt strong nationalistic ties to Hungary. There all similarities ended. Reményi might be entirely forgotten were it not for his significant cameo role in Brahms’ life. Joachim is one of the great figures of the nineteenth century, whose enduring contributions to music history often go unnoticed. Joachim, just two years older than Brahms, was already one of the most important musicians of his – 10 – time and the most celebrated violin virtuoso since Paganini. In a diary entry, Clara Schumann described Joachim’s performance of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto as “the greatest triumph, the most unforgettable performance” she had ever witnessed. As it happens, Brahms himself heard the sixteen- year-old Joachim play the same concerto with the Hamburg Philharmonic in 1848, and later he wrote to Joachim of the experience, “I was your most enraptured listener.” Joachim had been a child prodigy and an attentively nurtured protégé of Mendelssohn’s in . Franz Liszt later tapped the teenage Joachim to be the concertmaster in . Joachim could easily have added to his fame and accumulated great wealth as a touring virtuoso, but he was anything but superficial either as a musician or as an intellectual. He pursued a serious and multifaceted musical life: as a violinist, he resurrected great but often neglected music (such as Bach’s unaccompanied sonatas and partitas and Beethoven’s concerto); in his playing, as in his conducting, Joachim subordinated technical virtuosity to aesthetic values, helping to bring about a reform in programming and perfor- mance values; he was a skillful composer; a shrewd editor (of many of Brahms’ scores); a teacher (he was Arthur Rubinstein’s first mentor); and in 1869 he founded the Joachim String Quartet, one of the first established string quartets to give public concerts. The quartet premiered the works of many of their contemporaries (including Brahms’), and was especially renowned for its performances of the late string quartets of Beethoven. It isn’t surprising that Schumann, Brahms, Bruch and Dvorak dedicated their violin concertos to Joachim. During their introductory meeting in May 1853, Brahms and Joachim quickly established a com- fortable rapport that ripened into one of Brahms’ most important friendships. At Joachim’s request, Brahms sat at the piano to perform a few of his own recently completed compositions: among others, he probably played the Scherzo in E flat minor and the first two piano sonatas. The effects of Brahms’ music and his playing were revelatory. “Never in the course of my artist’s life have I been more completely overwhelmed,” wrote Joachim. “His compositions, so rich and ruthless- ly rejecting all earthly woes, are such an effortless game in the the most complex disguise. Never have I encountered such talent.” Notwithstanding occasional rifts (Brahms’ prickly, often tactless personality led to tensions with even his closest friends), Joachim’s friendship and musicianship would benefit Brahms in countless ways, both personal and professional. (Joachim possessed one of the finest ears in history for instru- mental balance and color, and for many years Brahms would routinely turn to him for advice con- cerning orchestration.) Within days, Joachim began to promote Brahms by writing letters of intro- duction to people who could advance his career. Most significantly, as Joachim met with in Düsseldorf to extol Brahms’ remarkable talents and to prepare the great composer for a forthcoming visit from a heavenly blessed young musician. – 11 – Many of Joachim’s contacts proved invaluable to Brahms and some became lasting friends. Among these, Brahms met and was befriended by the Deichmanns, a wealthy, music- loving family at whose home Brahms for the first time had the opportunity to study several scores by Robert Schumann. The timing was providential since Brahms was soon going to have his life-altering meeting with the Schumanns. Brahms must have been startled to discover the extent to which his own musical and literary ideals corresponded with those of the great composer. Significantly, both identified powerfully with the musical precepts of E.T.A. Hoffmann, as they appeared in his essays about music (especially Beethoven’s) and in his fiction, with the character Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler, the half-mad violinist hero, who was Brahms’ early alter-ego as well as the inspiration for Schumann’s Kreislerianna, Op. 16. It must surely have been an epiphany for Brahms to dis- Brahms with violinist cover Schumann’s protean variation technique and his means Joseph Joachim, 1855 of unifying diverse elements within a large-scale piano com- position, when for the first time he studied the Kreislerianna, The Symphonic Etudes, and the C major Fantasy. (These works would later appear in Brahms’ recitals.) After leaving Joachim, Brahms and Reményi headed towards Weimar to meet with Franz Liszt. That June, Liszt welcomed Reményi (whom he already knew) and he cordially received Brahms with raised expectations, due to a letter of introduction he had already received from Joachim (for whom Liszt still felt boundless admiration and affection). Though Liszt was very enthusiastic about Brahms’ Scherzo in E flat minor and, like everyone else, Brahms was bowled over by Liszt’s pianism (“Whoever has not heard Liszt cannot even speak of piano playing”), the meeting between these two great com- posers did not engender a lasting relationship. Their aesthetic values and individual temperaments were too incompatible. The occasion also led to an unpleasant parting of the ways between Brahms and Reményi, who lingered in Weimar as Brahms moved on. The meeting with Joachim had been a quiet but inestimably important one: throughout his life Joachim would provide Brahms with significant, often indispensable assistance — musical, practical, emotional and philosophical. However, the meeting with Robert Schumann and his wife Clara (her- self a world famous pianist) a few months later resounded throughout the world of music and virtual- – 12 – ly overnight transformed an unknown twenty year old musician into a famous composer and pianist, of whom great things were hereafter expected. Robert Schumann, then forty-three, greeted Brahms for the first time on the morning of October 1, 1853. After some polite conversation, Schumann introduced Brahms to his wife Clara and invited him to play some of his own music for them. It is likely that Brahms chose to begin with his strongest composition to date, the Sonata in C major, which though published as Op. 1, was completed as recently as March or April 1853. The Schumanns were dazzled, somewhat incredulously, as they encouraged Brahms to play more of his works for them. These (carried over into the next few days) would have included the Sonata in F sharp minor, Op. 2 from November 1852 and the Scherzo Op. 4, from 1851, as well probably as sev- eral of Brahms’ early songs including the lovely “Liebestreu,” and his arrangements of some of the Hungarian folk songs he had been accumulating (Clara found these “very curious”). Brahms is also likely to have shared at least a few of the chamber pieces that he subsequently destroyed. Brahms was and remained dispassionately, even ruthlessly self-critical, and throughout his life he destroyed compositions that he decided were unworthy. For instance, of some twenty string quartets that he wrote, he published only three. The others he burned. Robert Schumann’s diary entry for that October 1 reads, “Brahms to see me (a genius).” We get a clearer sense of the impression Brahms made on the Schumanns from Clara’s journal: “Here again is one who comes as if sent from God! He played us sonatas and scherzos of his own, all of them rich in fantasy, depth of feeling and mastery of form. Robert could see no reason to sug- gest any changes. It is truly moving to behold him at the piano, his interesting young face transfigured by the music, his fine hands which easily overcome the greatest difficulties (his things are very diffi- cult), and above all his marvelous works....A great future lies before him, for when he comes to the point of writing for orchestra, then he will have found the true medium for his imagination.” The Schumanns immediately embraced the young man with the big, inexplicably mature talent. They insisted that Brahms remain their houseguest until the end of the month, when Joachim was coming to perform in Düsseldorf. Then Brahms and Joachim could travel back to Hanover, where they already had plans to rendezvous for an opportunity to work and study together. Brahms was overwhelmed by the Schumanns’ enthusiastic embrace of his music and by their warmth and generosity towards him. The visit included a lot of music making, with all three playing; lots of talk- ing about the music; there was reading aloud and games they shared; and there was still enough private time for each to work undisturbed. Moreover, with critical guidance from Clara, Brahms began to prac- tice the piano with a new intensity, raising the level of his playing in anticipation of the more robust

– 13 – concert life that lay ahead. For along with Joachim’s net- working on his behalf, the Schumanns were already spread- ing the news to their important friends in the music com- munity of the advent of an important new voice in music. Robert Schumann wasted no time: he persuaded his publishers Breitkopf & Härtel to publish Brahms’ first music; and though it had been years since he had written for Neue Zeitschrift Fur Musik (“The New Journal For Music”), the magazine he had founded almost a decade ear- lier, on October 13 (the day after Brahms performed the Sonata in F minor) he hastily composed an essay for the publication to introduce Brahms to the music world and to help to create an audience for him. The essay called Neue Bahnen (“New Paths”) appeared on October 28, 1853. In it, Schumann wrote: “...a musician called to give expression to his times in Clara & Robert Schumann ideal fashion...has appeared... His name is Johannes Brahms, and he comes...instructed in the most difficult statutes of his art by an excellent and enthusiastically devoted teacher [Marxsen]. A well-known and honored master [Joachim] recently recommended him to me...proclaiming: ‘This is a chosen one.’ Sitting at the piano he began to disclose wonderful regions to us. We were drawn into even more enchanting spheres. Besides, he is a player of genius who can make of the piano an orchestra of lament- ing and loudly jubilant voices. There were sonatas, veiled symphonies [my italics] rather; songs the poet- ry of which would be understood even without words, although a profound vocal melody runs through them all; single piano pieces, some of them turbulent in spirit while graceful in form....” Brahms was overwhelmed by Schumann’s encomiastic rhapsody. Though he was thrilled (for his parents’ sake as well, since Johannes’ intention to pursue composing as a career baffled them), he also recognized the awful burden of expectations that Schumann’s inflated rhetoric had created. Not only would he have to be great to rise up to the heights at which Schumann already placed him, Brahms understood, but he was now a kind of celebrity who would hereafter be working under a spotlight. Any new composition of his and any performance he gave would be measured against the impossibly high standards that Schumann set for him. Brahms wrote to Schumann: “The praise you have lavished upon me will have raised public expec- tations to such an extent that I do not know how I can do them justice.” – 14 – Brahms, the Pianist Young Brahms had convinced such formidable musicians as Marxsen, Joachim, and the Schumanns that he was going to be an important composer based mainly on his abilities as a pianist and on his music for the instrument. Yet assessing the quality of Brahms’ piano playing is uncommonly difficult because the accounts of his contemporaries seem to divide about evenly between admirers and detrac- tors. Further complicating matters is that the differences between the two groups often seem to derive from their aesthetic perspectives. By the time Brahms took leave of the Schumanns, seeking to make his way as a concert artist and as a composer, the War of the Romantics (the traditionalists versus the moderns) was already very hot. Brahms’ playing was more likely to be admired by those who saw them- selves as defenders of the “Classical faith” (among them Brahms’ new friends, the Schumanns and Joachim) than it was by apostles for the Music of the Future (the admirers of Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner). The ears of the partisans were often predisposed: what these listeners heard could be affect- ed by aesthetic convictions so fervently held that they resembled the beliefs of religious zealots. In short, ideology often shaped perception. Joachim wrote of Brahms that, “...he plays divinely. I have never heard piano playing (except per- haps Liszt’s) which gave me so much satisfaction — so light and clear, so cold and indifferent to pas- sion.” Even if we understand that the classicists prized formal restraint, clarity and order while abhor- ring the large, freely expressed passions, delights in virtuosity, and other idiosyncratic turns of the new Romantics, it still seems odd that the phrase “cold and indifferent to passion” is meant to praise an interpretive artist. And how are we to square what Joachim so admired in Brahms’ playing with the description by his ideological comrade, Robert Schumann, “Sitting down at the piano, he began to open regions of won- der. We were drawn more and more into charmed circles. Add to this a technique of absolute genius, which turned the piano into an orchestra of wailing or exultant voices.” It is difficult to believe that Joachim and Schumann were describing the same pianist. A more shaded appraisal came from , another musical conservative, who was Brahms’ friend and perhaps Vienna’s most influential music critic at the time: “His technique is like a big, strong man, negligent in attire and given to loitering. He has too many more important things in his head and heart to be constantly concerned with his external personal appearance. But his playing is always compelling and convincing.” The Russian piano virtuoso wrote to Franz Liszt after hearing Brahms as the soloist in a performance of a Mozart piano concerto in early 1856, “he is not polished enough for the drawing-room; he is not fiery enough for the concert-room; for the country he is not primitive

– 15 – enough; and not cosmopolitan enough for the town.” We are obliged to question the extent to which Rubinstein’s response to Brahms’ playing is a partisan expression of the musical modernists, who strove for big effects. Moreover, though Rubinstein was unquestionably a brilliant pianist, he was also inclined to pound out his fortissimos, often at the cost of broken strings. Still, Rubinstein was not alone in finding Brahms’ playing restrained. Reacting to Brahms’ performance as the soloist in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, a critic wrote, “He carried his reserve too far. He might...have dis- played rather more virtuosity.” The matter of “excessive restraint” that some of his critics perceived may extend beyond Brahms’ himself and go to the way that aesthetic preferences influence performance practice. There were crit- ics for whom even the playing of Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim was too cool, detached, and unimpassioned, whereas admirers found their playing noble, profound, moving and illuminating. In Florence May (Brahms’ onetime piano student and later his biographer) we encounter an arbiter who was privileged to hear Brahms play on successive evenings, with mixed results: “After a good deal of pressing, he crossed over to the piano and gave the first movement of the G major Fantasia-Sonata and the first movement of the A minor Sonata, Op. 42, both of Schubert, but his playing was ineffective. It appeared to me to be forced and self-conscious, and he himself seemed to remain, as it were, outside the music...when I told Frau Schumann afterwards, she answered that I had not yet really heard him; that he had not wished to play, but had yielded to over-persuasion...” And the following night: “...then Brahms played. It was an entirely different thing from the day before...he played a wild piece by Scarlatti as I never heard anyone play before...it was so mad and wild and so beautiful...I hope I shall hear him often if he plays as he did last night.” Our impressions have to be qualified further if we are willing to accept the view held by Brahms and many of those who knew him that he was a much better pianist when playing privately for friends and acquaintances than he was when performing in formal concerts, due to nerves and his aversion to playing before audiences. Brahms made no secret of his distaste for playing in concerts. In August 1854, he wrote to Clara Schumann, “I think of you going to the concert hall like a priestess to the alter....But I have never had that feeling, as I only know the public from a distance. I shun its proximity.” Brahms’ aversion to concerts derives from many sources, both practical and psychological: among them, his highly developed need for privacy; his profound, but elaborately disguised, shyness; his chronic distaste for the steady diet of practice (“a necessary evil”) that was required; his nerves often betrayed his fingers when playing in public; and his resentment that he had to compromise his values

– 16 – in repertoire even slightly in order to cater to the expectations of his audiences. Recall that he felt oblig- ed to program flashy opera paraphrases by Thalberg in order to induce audiences to listen to the music that mattered to him. Regarding the last factor, Brahms had to compete for audiences with some of the greatest piano vir- tuosos in history, and many of these pianists had conditioned audiences to favor music that showcased their pyrotechnical displays over the more subtly demanding repertoire that was congenial to Brahms (mainly Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and his own compositions). Brahms loathed music and music making in which virtuosity itself was paramount. We may surmise that in his prime Brahms’ greatest strengths as a pianist were his sense of structure, his acute feel for a work’s animating rhythms, and his canny sense of dynamics and phrasing. These virtues are, of course, attributable more to his superior musical instincts and knowledge than to any- thing extraordinary about his technique. These are also the virtues that so pleased Reményi and Joachim when Brahms collaborated with them in recitals. It also seems clear that beginning roughly in the mid-1870s — when he was financially secure and limited his concerts primarily to spreading his own music — he neglected to practice except before upcoming concerts and his technique deteriorat- ed noticeably. With great affection, Clara Schumann once tweaked her old friend’s later tendencies towards careless playing as “thump, bang, and scramble.” Romantic and Classicist Brahms’ life and art contain many dualities. He was variously solitary/gregarious, cruel/kind, self- absorbed/generous, taciturn/combustible, insecure/ confident, coarse/delicate, Romantic/Classical, expansive/cryptic. To a great extent, this painfully conflicted, fiercely determined, and often lonely man remains an enigma. Though he was often severely depressed due to his inability to integrate the warring dichotomies in his life, it is a measure of his greatness as a composer that he succeeded in rec- onciling so many opposing qualities in his art. One of these, the ostensible conflict between passion- ate expression and formal discipline, can be traced to Brahms’ teachers: Cossel stressed the importance of communicating music’s emotional power, while Marxsen preached that the artist must submit his passions to formal constraints and stringent craftsmanship. The tension between Romantic excess and Classical order is one of the trademarks of Brahms’ music. Leonard Bernstein put it this way, “Brahms was a true Romantic containing his passions in classi- cal garb” [but also a] “North-German classicist swept away to Vienna, and fired by Danubian, Carpathian and gypsy passions.... [He] set himself up as the ‘guardian of musical order’ in an age of romantic disorder, but what he was really guarding was his own passions, those conflicts... that threat-

– 17 – ened to tear him apart.” Brahms was a reluctant participant in the War of the Romantics and it frustrated him that his name was drawn into battle too readily by musicians or critics who unwisely presumed to understand his music and his opinions. He often had to rebuke his own fiercest supporters who criticized Wagner’s music fatuously in order to curry favor with him. And though he remained friends with the influential Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick, who invariably supported his work, he cannot have had much respect for the judgment of a man to whom, as Donald Francis Tovey noted, “Beethoven was accept- able only in his middle works, as being puerile in his Joseph Joachim in 1903, with his first period and decadent in his third; to whom pupil, Franz Vecsey Haydn and Mozart were court composers, an aria of Bach a piece of running clockwork, and Palestrina as incomprehensible... The loneliness of Brahms was intensified by the accession of such a partisan.” However, the critic Adolf Schubring wrote a remarkably prescient series of essays about Brahms for the Neue Zeitschrift in 1862 that caught the composer’s interest and earned Schubring his friendship for their comprehension and acute insight. Schubring observed of Brahms that, “He understands how to be Classic and Romantic, ideal and real—and after all, I believe he is appointed to blend both these eternal oppositions in art.” And in the same spirit, Tovey wrote, “Brahms’ art was from the outset so manifestly beyond the scope of all parties and partisans of opposite tenets eagerly proved their intelligence by claiming him as among their leaders. The genuine freedom of his art-forms made his pianoforte sonatas acceptable to the romantic extremists grouped around Liszt; while it was evident to anyone whose interest in the classics was not merely conventional that...this music showed a mastery of classical technique unknown since Beethoven...” The point is that Brahms always thought of himself as a Romantic: that is, he saw himself contin- uing in the Romantic tradition (that’s right, the Romantic tradition) of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann. Brahms was never against passionate music. To Brahms, adhering to the traditional forms (sonata, rondo, and the others) was the equivalent of writing or speaking grammatically. For Brahms, the formal standards passed along to us by his generation’s supe- – 18 – rior forefathers (were not Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven just about everyone’s superiors?) provided musicians with the means to communicate as clearly and fully as possible, however big or complicat- ed the musical ideas and emotions (was the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven timid or colorless or repressed?). Brahms was no less romantic than Wagner. Virtually without exception, the art songs he composed throughout his career, as well as the brief piano compositions to which he turned in later years, are studies in unabashedly subjective lyricism, and even in his symphonies and , the lyric impulse is rarely far away. As Friedrich Nietzsche astutely observed in 1888: “If we discount what [Brahms] imitates, what he borrows from great old or exotic-modern styles, . . . what remains as specif- ically his is yearning. This is felt by all who are full of yearning and dissatisfaction of any kind.” It is difficult to find a better example of Brahms’ blending his passionate Romantic sensibilities with his mastery of Classical forms than his Sonata No. 3 in F minor. Op 5. “The pianoforte,” wrote , “can be seen in two ways: as an orchestral instrument, or as a complete little orchestra in itself.” For Brahms, the two approaches overlap so seamlessly in his third and last sonata for solo piano that they are virtually inseparable. Robert Schumann described Brahms’ early piano music as “veiled sym- phonies,” and nowhere is that description better suited than to the Sonata No. 3 in F minor, the twen- ty year old composer’s towering monument to his youthful Sturm und Drang period. Brahms had already composed the slow second and fourth movements of the sonata before begin- ning his month-long stay with the Schumanns. Astonishingly, he wrote the central scherzo and the two outer movements in under two activity-filled weeks, for on October 12, Brahms performed the sonata for the Schumanns. Since Schumann drafted his “New Paths” essay on October 13, with this sonata freshest among Brahms’ compositions in his mind, it seems reasonable to infer that this sonata inspired his “veiled symphonies” metaphor. It would be interesting to know to what extent Brahms intended to achieve an orchestral effect. Brahms’ piano writing here abounds with pianistic challenges: crowded chords with doubled thirds and octaves, awkward figurations, rapid harmonic changes, the dense orchestral texture, the unusual rhythms and cross-accents, and the frequent tenths and twelfths requiring large hands. Yet for all the of the difficulties in performing the sonata it provides none of the obvious occasions for flashiness (sweeping scales, ornamental figurations) that readily draw attention to a pianist’s virtuosity. In retrospect, we can appreciate that the Sonata in F minor possesses virtually all of the characteris- tics we know as Brahmsian: his infallible grasp of musical architecture; the bold contrasts of mood and harmonic color; his attraction to sonata form; his mastery of variations and thematic transformation; the internal cross-referencing (the Finale refers to the Scherzo; the Andante and the relate – 19 – thematically, and the D flat submediant carries melodic material that relates all the movements fur- ther); his love of beautiful songs (with and without words); his harmonic daring; his rhythmic vitality and use of cross-rhythms (often 3/4 alternating with 6/8 and duplets playing against triplets); the influence of folk and gypsy styles; his contrapuntal thinking; and, of course, the turbulent passions and unquenchable ardor appearing to strain against the formal classical constraints.

Earl Wild with some thoughts on the Sonata:

“In my 86 years on this planet, I have heard many great pianists play this monumental sonata, but for me Arthur Rubinstein remains quite special. His performances were outstanding because he best under- stood the strong rhythmical structure of this ingenious musical masterpiece. In Brahms’ music generally, and especially in this piece, rhythmic and phrasing inconsistencies tend to weaken the structure. Because Brahms’ First Symphony contains many rhythmic similarities to the F minor Sonata (which is an obvious psychological offspring) and because Brahms’ thoughts were always orchestral, I have found it helpful to study and play the symphony on the piano. To perform this sonata effectively, it is very important to think orchestrally in regard to proper balance, color and flexibility. It’s very tempting, for instance, to indulge in a rhapsodic approach to this Sonata — to romanti- cize or sentimentalize its many appealing phrases — but the structure must always have a relationship to the emotional character of the phrase. For instance, the second movement Andante is marked espressivo and is written in 2/4. When played too slowly (the trend these days), it emerges as 4/8, and the result of this kind of interpretive self-indul-

Manuscript of first few measures of the 2nd Mvt. of Brahms Sonata No. 3, Op. 5

– 20 – gence is usually vulgarity. It must be felt rhythmically in 2/4 to the measure as Brahms’ wrote it; as much as possible the pianist must resist the temptation to think in four. The third movement Scherzo has the wonderful juxtaposition between gypsy and scholar. This dis- tinctive combination can be found in many of Brahms’ great pieces. I have often felt that Brahms was hiding a gypsy behind his full beard — indeed, it sometimes seems that his music is most beloved when he allows the gypsy in his psyche to emerge. The Finale is best played without any pianistic posturing on phony musical gestures. There is no need to interpret by gesturing — it’s already written on the page — it’s in the music. This sonata is pure symphonic Brahms waiting to come alive.”

The Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 was completed late in 1853 and published in 1854. The first movement — 1 Allegro maestoso — is the most symphonic of the five movements, and from the keyboard-engulfing opening chords it possesses a propulsive dynamism and audacity that can seem almost overwhelming. Yet for all of its heaven-storming energy, eventfulness, richness of ideas, variety and dramatic power, the writing is remarkably concise. The protean opening theme provides the source from which the entire movement, including the second theme, is derived through thematic metamor- phosis: the theme expands and contracts to yield new motifs and melodic material through augmen- tation and diminuation. The second movement – 2 Andante espressivo – is prefaced by a quotation from the poet C. O. Sternau:

Twilight falls, the moonlight shines, Two hearts are joined in love And embrace each other blissfully. The movement begins as a dreamy nocturne with two lovely alternating melodies. An expansive mid- dle section then yields a new more ardent voice that carries over a sensual throbbing bass, and when the first two themes reappear, the drama intensifies and builds to a rapturous climax in D flat (whose cross rhythms require orchestral treatment). The movement ends with a brief, gentle epilogue consisting of a few measures. Claudio Arrau called this andante, “the most beautiful love music after Tristan.” The movement is by turns ethereal, dreamy, and passionate. (This was the first movement Brahms wrote for the sonata, and it foreshadows the singing lyricism of his late compositions for solo piano.)

– 21 – The third movement — 3 Scherzo, Allegro energico — begins as an energetic ländler — an Austrian-German folkdance in 3/4 time — which with its jagged cross-rhythms and emphatic octaves emits a whiff of the demonic. The central section is a wistful, chorale-like Trio in D flat whose rich chordal texture and undulating melody provides a lyric contrast to the movement’s vigorous outer sec- tions. Ideas from the Scherzo’s opening and the Trio are developed together before Brahms’ masterly transition brings the music back to a repeat of the opening material. (The Andante and the Scherzo provide early examples of Brahms’ characteristic use of cross-rhythms.) Brahms deviates from traditional sonata structure with the addition of this movement — 4 Intermezzo (Rückblick): Andante Molto — between the Scherzo and the Finale. Subtitled Rückblick (Retrospect or Backward glance), this haunting intermezzo looks back with unutterable sadness to the love drenched second movement, which is now suffused with melancholy, as youthful bliss has turned to loss and sorrow. The key changes from the D flat of the love music to an elegiac B flat minor, and as the andante takes on the rhythms of a funeral march and the clashing harmonies add to the sense of desolation, Brahms’ piano writing seems orchestral, as it did at the end of the second movement. The fifth movement — 5 Finale: Allegro Moderato Ma Rubato — emerges haltingly, with appro- priately tentative steps after the tragedy-shrouded Intermezzo. And though it may come to seem wild- ly episodic, the Finale is a modified rondo and it is filled with allusions to earlier movements. The first theme is a dark, gnarly, scherzo-like dance of death, its somber tone and rhythms responding to the funereal Rückblick. The gloom is dispelled by the appearance of an exultant chorale-like theme, again in D flat. The sonata ends with an extended, polyphonically worked-out coda. As the pace and excite- ment escalate, the bright, swinging chorale theme (in major) battles with and vanquishes the dark rondo theme (in minor); the themes now join together (in major) to produce some of the most thrilling and exuberant music that Brahms ever wrote. (Brahms also used the major-minor conflict with major emerging in uplifting triumph in the finale of his First Symphony.) The Mature and Late Piano Masterpieces Brahms’ last large-scale work for solo piano, Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35, was pub- lished in 1866. His next work for solo piano was the sixteen charming Waltzes, Op. 39, published in 1867 (a year after the version for piano four-hands). Hereafter, Brahms confined his work for solo

– 22 – piano only to sets of relatively short pieces. The first of these sets did not appear until 1878, when he produced his first piano masterpieces in miniature, the Eight Piano Pieces, Op. 76, which were followed a year later by the Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79. These sets were published in 1879 and 1880. After the Rhapsodies, Brahms again abandoned composing for the solo piano, this time for thirteen years. When he returned to it, he composed twenty works in four sets (Opp. 116 - 119) that appeared in 1892-93: these rank among the glories of the keyboard literature. Brahms variously called these short pieces Rhapsody, Intermezzo, Capriccio, or Ballade, but he was rarely comfortable in assigning these names (or alternatives that were considered) to any of the pieces, even after receiving the suggestions he solicited from the two or three people whose opinions he most respected. The Rhapsodies are somewhat larger in scale, with perhaps more development material and extroverted passion; but otherwise all the pieces (including the Rhapsodies) relate to either tenary or sonata forms, so there is little formal distinction among the pieces by which to justify the particular selection of any of the alternative names. Beginning with the piano pieces of Op. 76 and Op. 79, Brahms would achieve a degree of mastery so great — in his command of keyboard textures and their expressive subtleties — that the size of the pieces, however diminutive, is far out weighted by their density and their illimitable depth. The late works are notable for their extreme economy of means, their variegated beauties and their spiritual expansiveness; and yet they are disinviting to many virtuosos because they conceal the difficult work the fingers must do while simultaneously exposing every lapse not only of execution but of the per- former’s own depth, judgment and taste. Walter Niemann put it simply, “The poet speaks - the vir- tuoso with Brahms has to be silent.” The older Brahms became,” noted Ekkehart Kroher, “the more piano music for two hands sym- bolized for him the expression of intimate vibrations of the soul, which he increasingly conceived in the form of lyrical piano pieces in one movement.” In her journal Clara Schumann found eleven of these new piano works that Brahms had sent her, “...full of poetry, passion, sentiment, emotion and with the most wonderful effects of tone. In these pieces I at last feel musical life stir again in my soul.” The pianist Arthur Rubinstein wrote, “It is with the late piano works, Op. 116 to 119, that we reach Brahms’ most personal music for his chosen instrument....Brahms in his final years produced serene

– 23 – and nostalgic music that was ever more inward in mood....They should be heard quietly, in a small room, for they are actually works of chamber music for the piano.” The ever-private Brahms remarked, “An audience of even one is too many.” 6 Intermezzo in B flat minor, Op. 117, No. 2 Brahms called his three Op. 117, “three cradle-songs of my sorrows.” And it is likely that Clara Schumann had one of these in mind when she wrote, “This piece seems to me neither more nor less than the expression of his own heart’s anguish. If only he would for once speak as tenderly!” The Intermezzo Op. 117, No. 2 in B flat minor, with its sonata design, is gently contemplative, intro- spective and lyrical; its melodic line falls, then rises, and falls once again through the arpeggio accom- paniment and over broken chords through a wide tonal range. 7 Ballade in G minor, Op. 118, No. 3 Brahms chose the twenty miniatures that comprise Opp. 116-119 from a substantially larger group of his shorter compositions for piano, some of them apparently written before 1892. The Ballade in G minor recalls Brahms’ younger, more heroic writing and it may predate the other compositions of Op. 118. It is written in straightforward ABA form, and its boldly rhythmic outer movements (the opening almost a galloping scherzo, the finale an almost march like scherzo) contrast with its quieter middle section. 8 Intermezzo in C Major, Op. 119, No. 3 Brahms marked this intermezzo Grazioso e giocoso (graceful & humorous). It takes only about a minute and a half to perform this delightful study in cross-rhythms and rhythmic elasticity. But this intermezzo is remarkable for its melodic richness, its air of good-humored spontaneity and its extra- ordinary concision. 9 Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 76, No. 6 With the publication of Eight Piano Pieces, Op. 76 in 1879, Brahms introduced his first piano mas- terpieces in miniature. In the gently, undulating Intermezzo No. 6 (in tenary form), the hands switch their relationship between triplets and duplets in each phrase. The piece asks for a broad tonal palette and it demands a pianist’s responsiveness to its irregular syncopations and a feel for its sudden dynam- ic fluctuations.

– 24 – 10 Intermezzo in E minor, Op. 119, No. 2 In this Intermezzo, which Brahms marked Andantino un poco agitato James Huneker per- ceived, “the rustling of the leaves in the warm west wind, but they are flecked by the sunshine. A tremulous sensibility informs this andantino, and its bars are stamped by genius.” It is some- times perhaps a bit too clear that in writing for nonprofessionals, critics are obliged to find a path between dry technical analysis and poetry. Since Brahms compressed so much delicious musical drama into these shorter pieces, Brahms with Johann Strauss Jr., 1894 Huneker’s reach for metaphors is understandable. This intermezzo is also in tenary form (ABA). Listen for the way Brahms transforms his main E minor theme into a lilting E major waltz for the central section through a series of variations. 11 Rhapsody in G minor, Op. 79, No.2 Brahms marked this piece Molto passionato, ma non troppo allegro. Though written in sonata form, this work feels truly rhapsodic: as if its turbulent expression had burst forth irresistibly and was unmediated by a governing intelligence. The music, couched in suitable harmonic and rhythmic lan- guage, is by turns passionate, uncertain, turbulent, lyrical, and angry. 12 Variations on a Theme by Paganini (Books I &II) Brahms’s immediate inspiration to write Studies for Piano: Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op. 35 (1862-3) was his friendship with Carl Tausig, who was Liszt’s favorite and most gifted student. Tausig’s life was tragically truncated when he died of typhoid fever at 30, but his playing had already convinced many of the most discerning musicians of the time that he was Liszt’s only genuine rival as a keyboard wizard. Brahms, who generally abhorred self-conscious virtuosity, probably felt deliciously naughty as he composed these forbiddingly difficult variations. Here, for once, and consulting with

– 25 – Tausig every variation of the way, he would unabashedly chal- lenge the supervirtuosos at their own game. Even so, Brahms may have hedged his bets a little by calling the work “Studies for Piano,” thereby justifying the virtuosic nature of the composition as a means by which pianists could strengthen their skills and so avoid having to defend himself against the claim that he had capitulated to the Moderns, par- ticularly to Liszt. Brahms also placed himself in the tradition of variation writing: the basis of this set of variations is Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 in A minor for solo violin (from the violinist’s Opus 1), which is itself a set of eleven variations on Paganini’s original theme; then, too, Schumann adapted several of the Paganini caprices for piano, but not this one, so Brahms’ treat- Brahms in his later years ment could be viewed as an extension of and supplement to Schumann’s work; Franz Liszt made a virtuoso arrangement of the twenty-fourth caprice to conclude his Paganini Etudes. Brahms was faithful to the tradition of variation writing by adhering predominantly to the structure, harmony and style of his source: he clung mainly to the short, two-part structure and A-minor key of Paganini’s theme. Brahms distinguished between this approach to composing variations and the more modern “fantasia variation,” which played freely with the structure, harmony and style of the source. Tausig gave the work its premiere in 1867, and then wrote to Brahms: “I am very well satisfied to have been the first to introduce the Variations to the public; in the first place, I had the devil of a time with them, and then I am glad that they have caused such a commo- tion. Everybody considers them unplayable, yet secretly they nibble at them, and are furious that the fruits hang so high.” The variations are incredibly difficult, demanding physical stamina as well as power, exceptional dexterity, a finely calibrated touch, and a commanding tonal palette. For Clara Schumann, to whom Brahms sent the manuscript, the variations were the Hexenvariationen (Witchcraft Variations). In

– 26 – James Huneker’s words, “these diabolical variations, the last word in the technical literature of the piano, are also vast spiritual problems. To play them requires fingers of steel, a heart of burning lava, and the courage of a lion.” Among the extraordinary technical challenges, a pianist must play: sixths against thirds in sixteenth notes; polyrhythms between the hands; high-register octaves and chords against low-register sixths; polyphony in contrary motion with wide leaps; staccato against legato; contrary motion octaves alter- nating with contrary motion double-notes; double-note passages tossed from one hand to the other; and octaves in both hands with rapid, upward sweeping arpeggios in between. But the Paganini Variations do much more than challenge a pianist’s technique, because it is also splendid music — a tight work of cumulative power — when a pianist has the fingers and the musi- cianship to convey Brahms’ rhythmic daring, his playfulness, the rapid shifts of mood, and his char- acteristic subtlety, logic and imagination in applying the classical rules of variation writing. These 28 variations divided evenly in two books are among peaks of piano virtuosity; each of the books states the theme and is followed by fourteen variations, many of them containing multiple dif- ficulties; and the fourteenth variation in each book is expanded to include a pyrotechnical coda. As studies, a pianist is naturally free to choose among any of the variations. For public performance, how- ever, a pianist must choose, at least between the alternative final variations-codas or accept the conse- quences of musical awkwardness and a sense of redundancy. Throughout the years, concert artists have performed the Paganini Variations in different arrangements, sometimes choosing one of the books, and often cutting and pasting the variations to suit their pianistic gifts and aesthetic temperaments. Earl Wild takes an approach in concerts that maximizes the musical content and adventure of these variations while minimizing inessential repetition: He performs the theme and the ensuing thirteen vari- ations from Book I. Then to avoid the redundancy of performing two codas (however different) and repeating the theme, he omits the combined final variation-and-coda of Book I and the restatement of the theme in Book II. Instead, Wild continues uninterruptedly from the thirteenth variation from Book I through the first thirteen variations of Book II. He then plays the fourteenth variation of Book II until he reaches the coda, but he omits this coda and instead inserts the entire fourteenth variation-and-coda from Book I, which he believes is the more brilliant and effective of the alternative endings.

– 27 – Earl Wild and Brahms

Earl Wild’s 1967 recording of Brahms’s piano music (available on Vanguard Classics) includes the Variations on a Theme of Paganini (Op. 35) and the Four Ballades (Op. 10). The Ballades (1856) com- prised the young composer’s first published set of short character pieces, and they adumbrate the six sets of more masterly and intimate character pieces from the last twenty years of his life. The Paganini Variations (1862-3) come from the composer’s middle period of compositions for the piano, during which he concentrated mainly on variations, among them his variations on themes by Handel and Schumann. Taken together with this new Brahms recording, which features works for solo piano that span the composer’s career — from the Sonata in F minor (1854), the first great large-scale composi- tion of Brahms’ youth, another look at the Paganini Variations (this time recorded live from a 1982 concert), through two short character works (from Op. 76 and Op. 79) by a mature, already famous composer, and the four short pieces from Opp. 117-119 (1892-3) that are among Brahms’ last pub- lished and most intimate and rarefied works — Earl Wild has now traversed each of Brahms’ salient piano styles. Liner Notes by Elliot Ravetz © 2002

Earl Wild Biography

Earl Wild is a pianist in the grand Romantic tradition. Considered by many to be “the last of the great Romantic pianists,” he is often heralded as a “super virtuoso.” This eminent musician is inter- nationally recognized as one of the great virtuoso pianist/composers of all time. His legendary career, so distinguished and long, has continued for over 75 years. One of only a handful of living pianists to merit an entry in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, he is therein described as a pianist whose technique “is able to encompass even the most difficult virtuoso works with apparent ease.” He was recently included in the Philips series, Great Pianists of the 20th Century with a double CD of all piano transcriptions. He has been featured on two occasions in TIME magazine, the more recent of which honored his eighty-fifth birthday.

– 28 – Born on November 26, 1915, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Earl Wild’s technical accomplishments are often likened to what those of Liszt himself must have had. Born with absolute pitch he started playing the piano at three. Having studied with great pianists such as Egon Petri (1881-1962), his lin- eage can be traced back to Scharwenka (1850-1924), Busoni (1866-1924), Ravel (1875-1937), d’Albert (1864-1932) and Liszt (1811-1886) himself. Earl Wild’s career is dotted with musical legends. In 1942, he was soloist with Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. Rachmaninoff was a personal friend and an important idol in his life. It’s been said of Earl Wild, “He is the incarnation of Rachmaninoff, Lehvinne and Rosenthal rolled into one!” In 1986, after hearing him play three sold-out Carnegie Hall concerts devoted to Liszt, honoring the centenary of that composer’s death, one New York critic said, “I find it impossible to believe that he played those millions of notes with 70-year-old fingers, so fresh-sounding and precise were they. Perhaps he has a worn-out set up in his attic, a la Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray.” In 1986 the People’s Republic of Hungary awarded the Liszt Medal to Earl Wild in recognition of his long and devoted association with the music of Franz Liszt. He’s one of the few American pianists to have achieved international as well as domestic celebrity. He has the singular honor of having performed at the invitation of six Presidents of the United States, beginning with Herbert Hoover. While serving in the U.S. Navy from 1942-1944 he was frequently requested to accompany First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on her many speaking engagements, at which he performed the national anthem as a prelude to her speeches. In 1939, he was the first classical pianist to give a recital on the new medium of Television. At fourteen he was performing in the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Otto Klemperer as well as working at radio station KDKA, where he played many of his own compositions. As a virtuoso pianist, composer, transcriber, con- ductor, editor and teacher, Mr. Wild continues in the style of the legendary great artists of the past. In addition to his distinguished concert career, which encompasses performances with other emi- nent conductors such as Stokowski, Reiner, Maazel, Solti and Mitropoulos, and great artists like Callas, Tourel, Pons, Melchior, Peerce and Bumbry, Earl Wild successfully shines as both a conductor and composer. The ABC television network broadcast his Easter oratorio, Revelations, in 1962 and again in 1964 with Mr. Wild conducting. His composition, Variations on a Theme of Stephen Foster for piano and orchestra (Doo-Dah Variations), was premiered with Mr. Wild as soloist with the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra in 1992 - and recorded that same year for Chesky Records. Mr. Wild has been called “the finest transcriber of our time,” and his many piano transcriptions are

– 29 – widely known, respected and performed. This eminent pianist has built an extensive repertoire over the years, which includes both the stan- dard and modern literature. He is one of the world’s most recorded pianists, having made his first disc for RCA in 1937. Since then he has recorded hundred’s of discs on 20 different record labels and become world renown in particular for his brilliant performances of the virtuoso Romantic works. In 1997 he became an exclusive Ivory Classics artist, and to date he has 16 CD releases on their label. Today at age 87, Mr. Wild continues to record and perform throughout the world. In 1997, he won a GRAMMY® award for his CD, The Romantic Master - Virtuoso Piano Transcriptions, which included thirteen piano transcriptions (nine of his own). Praised by critics and music lovers around the world (also featured in Time Magazine), it is now available in its original HDCD state-of-the-art audiophile sound on the Ivory Classics label (CD-70907). At the age of 79, he recorded a well-received Beethoven disc, which included the monumental Hammerklavier Sonata, as well as another disc of Rachmaninov Preludes and the Second Piano Sonata. A release on the Ivory Classics label features an historic Gershwin disc, which includes Mr. Wild’s 1945 recording of the Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman conducting in addition to his famous solo piano transcriptions of Porgy and Bess and Seven Virtuoso Etudes (CD-70702). In 2000, Mr. Wild recorded three 20th century piano sonatas by Barber, Hindemith and Stravinsky as well as a piano sonata of his own which was released on Ivory Classics (CD - 71005) - in honor of his 85th birthday year. In July of 2001, Mr. Wild recorded a world premiere 2-CD set of 53 solo pieces entitled, Le Rossignol Eperdu, which were written in the early 20th century by the renowned French composer Reynaldo Hahn. This disc was released by Ivory Classics in November 2001 (Ivory CD - 72006).

– 30 – CREDITS

Recorded at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Buffalo, NY. May 5-6, 2002 (Tracks 1-5). Recorded in Columbus, Ohio September 21, 2000 (Tracks 6-11) Recorded in Concert in Salle Gaveau, Paris March 22, 1982 (Track 12)

Original 24-Bit Master Recorded direct to the Sadie Artemis 24-Bit High Resolution disk editor.

Producer: Michael Rolland Davis

Recording Engineer: Ed Thompson

Piano Technicians: Gary Shipe (1-5), Edd Kolakowski (6-11)

Generous assistance came from the Ivory Classics & Lucky Star Foundations

Special thanks to Pastor Charles Bang of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Buffalo, NY.

Liner Notes: Elliot Ravetz

Photos: Courtesy Michael Rolland Davis / Ivory Classics

Design: Samskara, Inc.

To place an order or to be included on mailing list: Ivory Classics® • P.O. Box 341068 • Columbus, Ohio 43234-1068 Phone: 888-40-IVORY or 614-761-8709 • Fax: 614-761-9799 [email protected] • Website: http://www.IvoryClassics.com

– 31 – Earl Wild - Brahms Ivory Classics CD-72008

Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 34:57 1 Allegro maestoso 9:21 2 Andante espressivo 10:18 3 Scherzo. Allegro energico - Trio 4:28 4 Intermezzo (Rückblick). Andante molto 3:09 5 Finale. Allegro moderato ma rubato 7:33 6 Intermezzo in B flat minor Op. 117, No. 2 4:29 7 Ballade in G minor Op. 118, No. 3 3:12 8 Intermezzo in C Major Op. 119, No. 3 1:20 9 Intermezzo in A Major Op. 76, No. 6 3:11 10 Intermezzo in E minor Op. 119, No. 2 4:16 11 Rhapsody in G minor Op. 79, No. 2 5:37 12 Variations on a Theme by Paganini Op. 35 (Books I & II) 20:27

Total Disc Time - 77:52

Producer: Michael Rolland Davis • Recording Engineer: Ed Thompson Original 24-Bit Master

2002 Ivory Classics® • All Rights Reserved. 64405-72008 STEREO Ivory Classics® • P.O. Box 341068 Columbus, Ohio 43234-1068 U.S.A. Phone: 888-40-IVORY or 614-761-8709 • Fax: 614-761-9799 ® [email protected] • Website: www.IvoryClassics.com