Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...

' String Quartet No. 1 in C minor and String Quartet No. 2 in A minor were completed in

Tutzing Tutzing is a municipality in the district of Starnberg in Bavaria, Germany, on the west bank of the Starnberger See. Just 40 km south-west of Munich and with good views of the Alps, the town was traditionally a favorite vacation spot for thos ...

, Bavaria, during the summer of 1873, and published together that autumn as Op. 51. They are dedicated to his friend

Theodor Billroth Christian Albert Theodor Billroth (26 April 18296 February 1894) was a German surgeon and amateur musician. As a surgeon, he is generally regarded as the founding father of modern abdominal surgery. As a musician, he was a close friend and conf ...

. He only published one other string quartet, No. 3 in B-flat Major, in 1875.

Composition

Brahms was slow in writing his first two

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

s. A letter from Joseph Joachim indicates that a C minor quartet was in progress in 1865, but it may not have been the same work that would become Op. 51 No. 1 in 1873. Four years before publication, however, in 1869, we know for certain that the two quartets were complete enough to be played through. But the composer remained unsatisfied. Years passed. New practice runs then occurred in Munich, probably in June 1873, and Brahms ventured south of the city to the small lakeside town of Tutzing for a summer respite. There, with the Würmsee (as

Lake Starnberg Lake Starnberg, or ''Starnberger See'' ) — called Lake Würm, or ''Würmsee'' , until 1962 — is Germany's second-largest body of fresh water, having great depth, and fifth-largest lake by area. It and its surroundings lie in three different Ba ...

was then called) and the Bavarian Prealps as backdrop, he put the finishing touches on the two quartets. He was 40 years old at the time of publication. Brahms regarded the string quartet as a particularly important genre. He reportedly destroyed some twenty string quartets before allowing the two Op. 51 quartets to be published.Donat, Misha (2008). Liner notes.
In

Takács Quartet The Takács Quartet is a string quartet founded in Budapest, Hungary, and now based in Boulder, Colorado, United States. History In 1975, four students at the Music Academy in Budapest, Gábor Takács-Nagy (first violin), Károly Schranz (seco ...

, ''Brahms: String Quartets Op. 67 and Op. 51, No. 1'', pp. 2–3 Explaining his progress to a publisher in 1869, Brahms wrote that as Mozart had taken "particular trouble" over the six "beautiful" ''Haydn'' Quartets, he intended to do his "very best to turn out one or two passably decent ones." According to his friend Max Kalbeck, Brahms insisted on hearing a secret performance of the Op. 51 quartets before they were published, after which he substantially revised them.

Influences

During Brahms' lifetime, the string quartet, like the

symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

, was a genre dominated by the compositions of

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

. Brahms had remarked of Beethoven in 1872, a year before composing his first quartets, "You can't have any idea what it's like always to hear such a giant marching behind you!" In choosing to write both his first string quartet and

in the key of

C minor C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature consists of three flats. Its relative major is E major and its parallel major is C major. The C natural minor scale is: : Cha ...

, the key in which Beethoven composed some of his greatest and most characteristic works, Brahms may have been seeking to acknowledge as well as break free from Beethoven's daunting influence. The influence of

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

is also strong on these works, particularly on the quartet in C minor. Structurally and thematically, the first movement of the C minor quartet bears a strong resemblance to Schubert's Quartettsatz, D. 703, also in C minor.

Structure

The "terse", "tragic"Hefling, Stephen E. (2003). "The Austro–Germanic quartet tradition in the nineteenth century." In Robin Stowell, ed., '' The Cambridge Companion to the String Quartet'', pp. 244–246. String Quartet No. 1 in C minor is remarkable for its organic unity and for the harmonically sophisticated, "orchestrally inclined" outer

movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

that bracket its more intimate inner movements. The quartet consists of four movements: The String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, also highly unified thematically, is comparatively lyrical, although culminating in a dramatic and propulsive finale whose tension "derives...from a metrical conflict between theme and accompaniment."Donat, Misha (2007). Liner notes.
In Takács Quartet and

Stephen Hough Sir Stephen Andrew Gill Hough (; born 22 November 1961) is a British-born classical pianist, composer and writer. He became an Australian citizen in 2005 and thus has dual nationality (his father was born in Australia in 1926). Biography Houg ...

, Brahms: String Quartet Op. 51, No. 2, and Piano Quintet, Op. 34, London: Hyperion], p. 7. Like Brahms's Piano Quartet No. 1 (Brahms), Piano Quartet No. 1 and

Violin Concerto A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin (occasionally, two or more violins) and instrumental ensemble (customarily orchestra). Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up thro ...

, the A minor quartet has a final movement modeled on a Hungarian folk dance, in this case a czárdás.Berger, Melvin (2001). ''Guide to Chamber Music'', Dover Books, p. 100. The quartet consists of four movements: With all the movements in A minor or A major, the String Quartet No. 2 is therefore

homotonal ''Homotonal'' (same-tonality) is a technical musical term pertaining to the tonal structure of multi-movement compositions. It was introduced into musicology by Hans Keller. According to Keller's definition and usage, a multi-movement composition ...

. Each quartet lasts about half an hour in performance.

Critical reception

The Op. 51 string quartets were received "respectfully if without great enthusiasm" at their respective premieres in October and December 1873. Swafford, Jan (1997). ''Johannes Brahms: A Biography'', Knopf, p. 386 While the quartets have enjoyed less popularity than some of Brahms's other chamber music, they helped revitalize "the great but moribund tradition" of the string quartet that had stagnated after Beethoven and Schubert, and helped inspire the quartets of

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist, and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as H ...

, and other twentieth century composers. In his famous essay "Brahms the Progressive", Schoenberg praised the quartets for their advanced

harmony In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. However ...

and for the unprecedented completeness with which Brahms derives each movement from a tiny motif. Schoenberg, Arnold (1950). ''Style and Idea'', Philosophical Library. The Op. 51 quartets have been recorded by many ensembles including the Amadeus Quartet, Quartetto Italiano,

Alban Berg Quartet The Alban Berg Quartett was a string quartet founded in Vienna, Austria in 1970, named after Alban Berg. Members Beginnings The Berg Quartet was founded in 1970 by four young professors of the Vienna Academy of Music, and made its debut in ...

Cleveland Quartet The Cleveland Quartet was a string quartet founded in 1969 by violinist Donald Weilerstein, at the time an instructor at the Cleveland Institute of Music, whose director Victor Babin had secured funding for an in-resident quartet (the institute's ...

Tokyo String Quartet The was an international string quartet that operated from 1969 to 2013. The group formed in 1969 at the Juilliard School of Music. The founding members attended the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo, where they studied with Professor Hideo ...

, Emerson Quartet,

Chiara String Quartet The Chiara String Quartet was an internationally performing professional string quartet based in Lincoln, Nebraska. The Group was the Quartet-in-residence at the School of Music in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Blodgett Artists-in-Re ...

and

References

External links

*
Performance of String Quartet No. 1
by the

Borromeo String Quartet The Borromeo String Quartet is an American string quartet, in residence at the New England Conservatory since 1992. They have performed throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia, at numerous festivals and in many distinguished chamber mu ...

from the

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was founded ...

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

format
Performance of String Quartet No. 2
by the Jupiter String Quartet from the

format {{Authority control

String quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...