Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 119 (Brahms)
Encyclopedia
The Four Pieces for Piano Op. 119, are four character piece
s for piano
composed by Johannes Brahms
in 1893
. The collection is the last composition for solo piano by Brahms. Together with the six pieces from Op. 118
these four pieces were first performed in London
in January 1894.
The Pieces for Piano Op. 119 are: 1. Intermezzo in B minor, 2. Intermezzo in E minor, 3. Intermezzo in C major, 4. Rhapsodie in E flat major. (The fact that Brahms originally intended to call his earlier B minor rhapsody, Op. 79 No. 1, ‘Capriccio’ shows that he may have used such terms rather loosely. ‘Intermezzo’ can be seen as an umbrella term under which Brahms could collect anything which was neither capricious nor passionate.) He completed these pieces during his summer holiday in Ischl, Upper Austria, in 1893, the first intermezzo being written in May and the following three pieces in June.
Since Brahms has combined these 18 character pieces in collections, he may have included some earlier compositions, and it is quite possible, although there is no definite proof, that some works—such as the E flat major rhapsody—may have been conceived before 1892. Two earlier collections of smaller lyric piano pieces, Eight Pieces for Piano Op. 76, and Two Rhapsodies Op. 79, date from 1871-79 (published 1879 and 1880 respectively).
titles for his works cannot be taken as proof of his compositions dispensing with programmatic
inspiration. His Edward Ballade
Op. 10 (composed 1854), for example, was inspired by a Scottish
ballad, and we can easily ‘hear’ the verses in the meter of the piano piece, especially the exclamation: "...Edward, Edward?"
:
Brahms sounds somewhat ironic here, but Clara Schumann was enthusiastic and asked him to send the remaining pieces of his new opus.
The words ‘melancholy’ and ‘with pleasure’ aptly describe the decadent ‘Schoenberg
ian’ atmosphere evoked by those aimless opening harmonies. In fact no clear tonality
can be perceived in these first three bars. The very first chord, for example, could be a B minor 7th chord superimposed on an E minor triad. The entire A section (bars 1-16) eludes the tonic and only the coda (bars 55-67) ends in B minor in a mood of deep resignation. The effect of wistful intimacy is not a result of improvisational looseness. The composer has calculated each effect in minute detail to create one of the most delicately wrought miniatures imaginable.
Brahms’s meticulosity in delineating the polyphonic
texture, often produced by individual articulation in different voices, is almost beyond imagination and makes enormous demands on the sensitivity of the performer.
In the middle section of the piece (bars 17-46) the warmer D major is supported by more consonant harmonies, a less polyphonic texture and a lilting slow waltz
rhythm. The motivic relationship can be observed in the top voice (compare bar 1 with bar 17).
To appreciate Brahms’s incredible expertise in manipulating the mood by slight changes in articulation and voice leading, compare bars 17-20, the opening of the middle section, with its repeated statement 31-34: In the later statement the blissful lilt has been ‘corrupted’ by an additional chromatic middle voice echoing the faded memory of the previous phrase (bars 29-30) and foreboding the immanent ecstasy of the climax (bar 39). Even the waltz
rhythm
in the left hand appears less comfortably declamated because the composer has renounced the use of legato
. Only the somewhat decadently syncopated top voice maintains its articulation. Thus we have three voices—each with its individual articulation and rhythm.
Brahms has a very marked predilection for subtle rhythmic shifts. In the opening of the E minor intermezzo (Ex. 14) the ¾ meter is disturbed by the sforzando
and sostenuto
in bar 2. In bar 3 a ‘correction’ is suggested, but already in bar 4 a much more serious displacement of the meter is occasioned with an apparent ‘wrong’ repeat of the theme on the third beat. The weak B minor sixth chord
in bar 5 can no longer be perceived as a downbeat. The subsequent syncopated repetitions of the d sharp in the top voice completely distort the original feeling of triple meter. It is mainly through these rhythmic shifts that the music evokes a mood of nervous agitation and anxious searching.
The freshness of C major is modified by presenting the melody as the middle voice, certainly lending it a more mellow hue. Brahms’s rhythmic manipulations involve the dichotomy of the first and fourth beats. The strong bass note C in the opening bar seems to establish a very certain downbeat, but this is contradicted by the right hand melody suggesting a downbeat on the fourth eighth note.
The length of the phrase is twelve bars, subdividing into two six-bar sections. The first six bars can certainly be heard as two three-bar units whereas the second six-bar section can rather be perceived as three times two bars. The second six-bar sub-phrase functions rhythmically as a giant Hemiola
(2´3=>3´2).
This rhythmic gracefulness is opposed by the middle section of the piece. Two eight-bar phrases, subdividing into four-bar units, try to ‘correct’ the twelve-bar dream in a most energetic manner.
The smooth legato opening of the recapitulation (starting with bar 41) is hiding a lot of impatience causing the undulating Hemiolas of the first two bars to explode in a sudden outburst. As a result of this the main theme can hardly be perceived as the entrance of the recapitulation
, and the underlying song form of the intermezzo becomes almost unrecognizable for the listener. Therefore it is arguable that this piece is in binary form and the B section begins at bar 49 where new material appears.
The ‘grazioso’ second theme (starting bar 93) is constructed by eight-bar phrases that do not subdivide into four plus four, but rather into three plus two plus three. Together with the ‘lute’ like arpeggiated accompaniment, these uneven phrase lengths project a certain teasing charm.
The rhapsody from Op. 119 has been criticized for its rather crude form and medieval
austerity. But the form has to match its content and a complex polyphony
or a sonata form
like development would surely disturb the archaic character of this magnificently heroic epic. The fact that Brahms uses extremely complex polyphonic devices in the intermezzos, but refrains from employing them in the rhapsody, proves that his enormous technical expertise as a composer is applied to the service of the character his music is to convey.
The piece ends in E-flat minor, the parallel minor key to where it started (E-flat major). While it is not unusual to end a minor-key composition in the parallel major, it is much less common to find a work constructed in this manner.
Character piece
Character piece is a literal translation of the German Charakterstück, a term, not very precisely defined, used for a broad range of 19th century piano music based on a single idea or program...
s for piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
composed by Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes 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...
in 1893
1893 in music
-Events:* February 9 - Premiere of Giuseppe Verdi's final opera Falstaff in La Scala in Milan*August 14-15 - America's oldest music organization, the Stoughton Musical Society performs at the World's Columbian Exposition...
. The collection is the last composition for solo piano by Brahms. Together with the six pieces from Op. 118
Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 118 (Brahms)
The Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 118, are some of the most beloved items that the composer Johannes Brahms wrote for the solo instrument. Completed in 1893 and dedicated to Clara Schumann, the collection was the second to last composition to be published during Brahms' lifetime. It was also his...
these four pieces were first performed in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in January 1894.
Historic Background
The Four Pieces for Piano were published in 1892 and 1893 along with three other collections of smaller piano pieces: the Seven Fantasias Op. 116, Three Intermezzos Op. 117, Six Pieces for Piano Op. 118, and Four Pieces for Piano Op. 119.The Pieces for Piano Op. 119 are: 1. Intermezzo in B minor, 2. Intermezzo in E minor, 3. Intermezzo in C major, 4. Rhapsodie in E flat major. (The fact that Brahms originally intended to call his earlier B minor rhapsody, Op. 79 No. 1, ‘Capriccio’ shows that he may have used such terms rather loosely. ‘Intermezzo’ can be seen as an umbrella term under which Brahms could collect anything which was neither capricious nor passionate.) He completed these pieces during his summer holiday in Ischl, Upper Austria, in 1893, the first intermezzo being written in May and the following three pieces in June.
Since Brahms has combined these 18 character pieces in collections, he may have included some earlier compositions, and it is quite possible, although there is no definite proof, that some works—such as the E flat major rhapsody—may have been conceived before 1892. Two earlier collections of smaller lyric piano pieces, Eight Pieces for Piano Op. 76, and Two Rhapsodies Op. 79, date from 1871-79 (published 1879 and 1880 respectively).
Romantic Traits
The fact that Brahms spurned poeticPoetic
Poetic may refer to:* Poetry, or a relation thereof.* Too Poetic, a deceased rapper and hip hop producer....
titles for his works cannot be taken as proof of his compositions dispensing with programmatic
Program music
Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...
inspiration. His Edward Ballade
Ballades, Op. 10 (Brahms)
The Ballades, Op. 10, constituted some of the finest examples of lyrical piano music written by Johannes Brahms during his youth. They were dated 1854 and dedicated to his friend Julius Otto Grimm...
Op. 10 (composed 1854), for example, was inspired by a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
ballad, and we can easily ‘hear’ the verses in the meter of the piano piece, especially the exclamation: "...Edward, Edward?"
Intermezzo in B minor
The poetic mood of the first intermezzo from Op. 119 belies its vague title. In a letter from May 1893, Brahms tells Clara SchumannClara Schumann
Clara Schumann was a German musician and composer, considered one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era...
:
"I am tempted to copy out a small piano piece for you, because I would like to know how you agree with it. It is teeming with dissonances! These may [well] be correct and [can] be explained—but maybe they won’t please your palate, and now I wished, they would be less correct, but more appetizing and agreeable to your taste. The little piece is exceptionally melancholic and ‘to be played very slowly’ is not an understatement. Every bar and every note must sound like a ritard[ando], as if one wanted to suck melancholy out of each and every one, lustily and with pleasure out of these very dissonances! Good Lord, this description will [surely] awaken your desire!"
Brahms sounds somewhat ironic here, but Clara Schumann was enthusiastic and asked him to send the remaining pieces of his new opus.
The words ‘melancholy’ and ‘with pleasure’ aptly describe the decadent ‘Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
ian’ atmosphere evoked by those aimless opening harmonies. In fact no clear tonality
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
can be perceived in these first three bars. The very first chord, for example, could be a B minor 7th chord superimposed on an E minor triad. The entire A section (bars 1-16) eludes the tonic and only the coda (bars 55-67) ends in B minor in a mood of deep resignation. The effect of wistful intimacy is not a result of improvisational looseness. The composer has calculated each effect in minute detail to create one of the most delicately wrought miniatures imaginable.
Brahms’s meticulosity in delineating the polyphonic
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
texture, often produced by individual articulation in different voices, is almost beyond imagination and makes enormous demands on the sensitivity of the performer.
In the middle section of the piece (bars 17-46) the warmer D major is supported by more consonant harmonies, a less polyphonic texture and a lilting slow waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
rhythm. The motivic relationship can be observed in the top voice (compare bar 1 with bar 17).
To appreciate Brahms’s incredible expertise in manipulating the mood by slight changes in articulation and voice leading, compare bars 17-20, the opening of the middle section, with its repeated statement 31-34: In the later statement the blissful lilt has been ‘corrupted’ by an additional chromatic middle voice echoing the faded memory of the previous phrase (bars 29-30) and foreboding the immanent ecstasy of the climax (bar 39). Even the waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
in the left hand appears less comfortably declamated because the composer has renounced the use of legato
Legato
In musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence...
. Only the somewhat decadently syncopated top voice maintains its articulation. Thus we have three voices—each with its individual articulation and rhythm.
Intermezzo in E minor
The E minor intermezzo could almost be called ‘monothematic,’ but each time the theme appears in a completely different guise which makes it hardly recognizable.Brahms has a very marked predilection for subtle rhythmic shifts. In the opening of the E minor intermezzo (Ex. 14) the ¾ meter is disturbed by the sforzando
Sforzando
Sforzando may refer to:*Sforzando, used in musical notation as an instruction to play a note with sudden, strong emphasis *Sforzando , a "pirate orchestra" from Melbourne, Australia, named after the musical term...
and sostenuto
Sostenuto
In music, sostenuto is a term from Italian which means "sustained." It occasionally implies a slowing of tempo, though more often it refers to a very legato style in which the notes are performed in a sustained manner beyond their normal values....
in bar 2. In bar 3 a ‘correction’ is suggested, but already in bar 4 a much more serious displacement of the meter is occasioned with an apparent ‘wrong’ repeat of the theme on the third beat. The weak B minor sixth chord
Sixth chord
A sixth chord may be any of several kinds of chord depending on the use of the term in classical music and popular music. The original meaning of the term is a chord in first inversion, in other words with its third in the bass and its root a sixth above it...
in bar 5 can no longer be perceived as a downbeat. The subsequent syncopated repetitions of the d sharp in the top voice completely distort the original feeling of triple meter. It is mainly through these rhythmic shifts that the music evokes a mood of nervous agitation and anxious searching.
Intermezzo in C major
But also the gracious playfulness of an apparent naïve melody, such as the main theme of the C major intermezzo, owes quite a lot to subtle rhythmic manipulations.The freshness of C major is modified by presenting the melody as the middle voice, certainly lending it a more mellow hue. Brahms’s rhythmic manipulations involve the dichotomy of the first and fourth beats. The strong bass note C in the opening bar seems to establish a very certain downbeat, but this is contradicted by the right hand melody suggesting a downbeat on the fourth eighth note.
The length of the phrase is twelve bars, subdividing into two six-bar sections. The first six bars can certainly be heard as two three-bar units whereas the second six-bar section can rather be perceived as three times two bars. The second six-bar sub-phrase functions rhythmically as a giant Hemiola
Hemiola
In modern musical parlance, a hemiola is a metrical pattern in which two bars in simple triple time are articulated as if they were three bars in simple duple time...
(2´3=>3´2).
This rhythmic gracefulness is opposed by the middle section of the piece. Two eight-bar phrases, subdividing into four-bar units, try to ‘correct’ the twelve-bar dream in a most energetic manner.
The smooth legato opening of the recapitulation (starting with bar 41) is hiding a lot of impatience causing the undulating Hemiolas of the first two bars to explode in a sudden outburst. As a result of this the main theme can hardly be perceived as the entrance of the recapitulation
Recapitulation
Recapitulation may refer to:* Recapitulation , a section of musical sonata form where the exposition is repeated in an altered form and the development is concluded...
, and the underlying song form of the intermezzo becomes almost unrecognizable for the listener. Therefore it is arguable that this piece is in binary form and the B section begins at bar 49 where new material appears.
Rhapsodie in E-flat major
Brahms’s experiments with rhythm and phrase lengths are also apparent in the E-flat major rhapsody which for 60 bars maintains 5 bar phrases. An insensitive performer will always present these first five bars as five times 2/4 rather than the implied two times 2/4, plus two times 3/4. More scrutiny in observation would reveal the absence of an accent on the fourth bar in connection with an inversion of the one fourth-note/two eighth-notes pattern in the left hand, clearly shifting the feeling of downbeat to the second beat of bar 4. The result is not a march rhythm (as described in many superficial analysis’) but rather an exalted heroic declamation.The ‘grazioso’ second theme (starting bar 93) is constructed by eight-bar phrases that do not subdivide into four plus four, but rather into three plus two plus three. Together with the ‘lute’ like arpeggiated accompaniment, these uneven phrase lengths project a certain teasing charm.
The rhapsody from Op. 119 has been criticized for its rather crude form and medieval
Medieval music
Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...
austerity. But the form has to match its content and a complex polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
or a sonata form
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...
like development would surely disturb the archaic character of this magnificently heroic epic. The fact that Brahms uses extremely complex polyphonic devices in the intermezzos, but refrains from employing them in the rhapsody, proves that his enormous technical expertise as a composer is applied to the service of the character his music is to convey.
The piece ends in E-flat minor, the parallel minor key to where it started (E-flat major). While it is not unusual to end a minor-key composition in the parallel major, it is much less common to find a work constructed in this manner.
External links
- Detailed listening guide using a recording by Martin Jones