String Quintets Nos. 1 and 2

Abstract

The two string quintets of Brahms, Quintet No. 1 in F major, Op. 88 and Quintet No. 2 in G major, Op. HI, are both scored, like the string quintets of Mozart, for two violins, two violas and cello. The choice of two violas is characteristic. The register of the instrument and the richness of texture that it can impart, whether in chamber music or in orchestral writing, was something very typical of Brahms. His first attempt at the form in 1862, using two cellos, he had destroyed, substituting an arrangement for two pianos and later a final version, the Piano Quintet in F minor. The F major String Quintet was written in the spring of 1882 at the fashionable resort of Bad Ischl, where, with many others from Vienna, he chose to spend the summer, and given its first performance on 28th December of the same year at Frankfurt am Main. The first movement opens with a pleasing first subject, in which the second violin soon joins, an octave higher. The second subject, in spite of its typical cross-rhythms, is at heart a Viennese waltz. The development of this classical movement includes considerable use of pedal-point, changing harmonies and textures over sustained bass notes, the whole section reaching a dynamic climax before the re-appearance of the first subject in varied recapitulation. The slow movement contains its own scherzo. The key of A major had been used for the second subject of the first movement. Now a sharper key, C sharp minor, with opening suggestions of the major, is used for the first section, in which the first violin melody is shared with the cello, before the violas continue it. The thematic material was taken from a Sarabande for piano, written in 1855. A cheerful A major Allegretto vivace appears in contrast, the violins accompanied by the plucked notes of second viola and cello. The opening Grave returns, marked molto dolce, to be followed by a Presto variation of the Allegretto vivace. The slow music resumes, now transformed into something more positive and in accord with the general mood of the quintet. Two chords introduce the final Allegro energico, followed by the statement of a fugal subject by the first viola, answered by the second violin, then the first violin, followed finally by second viola and cello together. The long subject, suggested, perhaps, by Beethoven's third Razumovsky Quartet, with its fugal finale, forms the basis of what follows, providing unity in music of great variety. The quintet ends with a final Presto. It had been Brahms's intention to make the String Quintet in G major, Op. Ill, his last chamber music composition. He wrote the work in the summer of 1890 at Bad Ischl and it was, in fact, followed by three more, the Clarinet Trio, Clarinet Quintet and Clarinet Sonatas, all of which have alternative scoring for viola instead of clarinet, although both instruments can share an autumnal feeling of melancholy and nostalgia. The G major Quintet, which was first performed in Vienna on 11th November in the year of its composition, starts with a movement derived from the composer's sketches for a fifth symphony. Here he allows the cello an orchestrally conceived first subject, competing with a challenging accompaniment from the other instruments, and again turns to Vienna for the inspiration of the second subject. There is a shift of key to B flat major in the central development, further modulation leading to the return of the original key and thematic material in recapitulation.