Symphony 1 - Brahms (1833-1897)

Un poco sostenuto - allegro: Andante sostenuto: Un poco allegretto e grazioso: Adagio - allegro non troppo, ma con brio

In 1853, Robert Schumann wrote a laudatory article in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik about the twenty-year-old Brahms, evaluating him as the heir to the musical legacy of Beethoven. In his article, Schumann wrote, "If [Brahms] directs his magic wand where the massed power in chorus and orchestra might lend him their strength, we can look forward to even more wondrous glimpses into the secret world of the spirits." At the time Schumann wrote the article, Brahms had composed several chamber pieces and works for piano, but nothing for orchestra. Although the article brought Brahms to the attention of the musical world, he also felt the crushing weight of expectation fall heavily onto his young shoulders. "I shall never write a symphony! You have no idea how it makes one feel to hear the thunderous step of a giant like him always behind you!"

Thus wrote Brahms to his friend, the conductor Hermann Levi, at the beginning of the 1870s. The giant was, of course, Beethoven whose symphonic legacy, culminating in the grandiose Ninth Choral Symphony, so overwhelmed Brahms as to impose a mental block on his symphonic creativity. It took Brahms over twenty years to overcome these artistic shackles and to have the confidence to complete his first symphony in 1876.

No sooner had friends, critics and audience become acquainted with this, the first of Brahms' four symphonies, than the arguments started as to whether this was indeed an attempt by him to write "Beethoven's Tenth". Similarities between the two composers' symphonies were noted, particularly the obvious main theme of Brahms' last movement and Beethoven's Ode to Joy. When this point was made by a contemporary, Brahms replied, "Yes, any ass can hear that". It is amazing how much heat can be generated by such musical discussions and, with the aid of the perspective of time, how unimportant they might seem to us. Perhaps we should bear in mind that, through the media, our current society has elevated the trivial to unforeseen heights as well as making an art form of misrepresentation.

At least, in the case of Brahms, people were discussing a great work of art and its relevance. Whatever Beethoven's Tenth Symphony would have been like, I have no doubt that it would have borne no resemblance to Brahms' First Symphony as the two composers wrote from widely differing musical and social perspectives. Beethoven's Ninth is an innovative musical testament to the spirit of man: Brahms’ First is a classically-formed traditional symphony imbued with the early ideas of the new spirit of romanticism.

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