Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68

Abstract

The precedents set by Beethoven's nine symphonies weighed heavily on Brahms' crea¬tive thoughts. Humbled by Beethoven's work, Brahms was unable to write a symphony he considered worthy enough to follow. For about fifteen years, he made various attempts, but abandoned them. These "cast-offs" found their way into many other early works. For example, around 1854, Brahms had worked on a projected symphony in D minor. Dissatisfied, he stopped work on it, but later used the first two movements in his First Piano Concerto. The funeral march he intended for the finale ended up in the German Requiem. Other "pre-symphonies" included the two Serenades for orchestra, and the Variations on a Theme of Haydn. The success of the Haydn Variations in 1874 encouraged Brahms to finish the First Symphony, which he had begun in 1862, and had revised continually. All this led to an ambitious, and in many ways, pretentious, work, compared to the three symphonies that followed. The critic, Hans von Biilow (not a friend of Brahms), derisively called it "Beethoven's Tenth." But, crossing this barrier was an impor¬tant event in the development of Bmhms' style. The first and last movements are the two large pillars of the First Symphony. Large, wide-ranging structures, they provide a framework for the less-imposing inner two movements. In a characteristically Romantic way, the symphony progresses from forebodings of doom to triumph and victory over despair. The meditative repose of the slow movement is important to this proc¬ess, and the delicate grace of the intermezzo dispels the gloom of the opening. Though Beethoven began to introduce this kind of emo¬tional level to symphonic thought, he never went as far as Brahms did. Beginning with a long and rather monumen¬tal slow introduction, Brahms introduces his principal motivic ideas: the rising chromatic scale and the triadic outline. In the main Allegro, they become the two contrasting themes of the sonata form. This music of light and shadow, struggle and victory (all in the Beethoven tradi¬tion) reflects Brahms' Romantic notions of what a symphony should be. Though the ghost of Beethoven haunts the entire movement, this is clearly by Brahms, and is not a youthful imitation of Beethoven. From the outset, Brahms' rich harmonic vocabulary is evident, along with his penchant for densely packed textures, often concentrated in the lower registers. At the same time, he emphasizes the dark colors of the lower ranges of the instruments, increasing the effect.