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Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor, op. 38
Brahms composed three movements of an E-mi-
nor cello sonata in 1862, but mysteriously broke
off work on the composition before the final
movement. As he approached the age of 30, his
reputation as pianist and composer was firmly
established, and he hoped this popularity would
earn him consideration when Friedrich Wil-
helm Grund retired as conductor of the Ham-
burg Philharmonic Concerts. Realizing that
Hamburg officials might be reluctant to appoint
a local musician, Brahms furthered his career in
Vienna. Unfortunately, the Hamburg position
was offered to Julius Stockhausen, a young sing-
er and conductor. This rejection deeply shook
Brahms, who withdrew to a suburb of Vienna
to concentrate on the composition of his cantata
Rinaldo
.
The newly established Viennese connections be-
came more important after the disappointment
in Hamburg. In 1863, Brahms was elected direc-
tor of the Vienna Singakademie, an organization
that performed
a cappella
choral works. For the
first time, he was exposed to the music of ear-
lier periods, particularly the works of Heinrich
Schütz and Johann Sebastian Bach. This discov-
ery would later exert a profound influence on his
compositional style. The following year Brahms
organized a concert to introduce his own music
to a wider public. These early years in Vienna
brought a renewed vigor to his creative activity,
and he produced a number of important pieces
for instrumental and choral ensembles. He re-
sumed work on the cello sonata in 1865.
Brahms’s conception for the Cello Sonata No. 1
in E minor changed radically during the three-
year hiatus. Of the original three movements,
he retained only two. He eliminated his
Adagio
from this piece, but later incorporated it into the
Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major, op. 99 (1886). In
addition, he added a fugal finale to the earlier
two movements. The choice of a fugue illustrates
the influence of Bach’s music on his composi-
tional style. Brahms dedicated the completed
three-movement sonata to Josef Gänsbacher,
an amateur cellist and professor of voice at the
Vienna Conservatory. He wrote in jest to Gäns-
bacher, “Do not be alarmed or annoyed if I put
your name on the cello sonata that I am about
to send you.” Simrock published the score as
op. 38 in 1866. The first performance took place
in Leipzig on a program of chamber music at the
Gewandhaus by cellist Emil Hegar and pianist
Carl Reinecke on January 14, 1871.
This sonata begins with an expansive move-
ment. A simple chordal piano accompaniment
supports the quiet, expressive cello theme. The
louder second theme is derived from an arpeg-
giated chord. Brahms constructs the
Allegretto
quasi Menuetto
in typical minuet form; the
trio
possesses some qualities of music by Robert
Schumann, his mentor. The finale is a fugue
marked
Allegro
. Several scholars have noticed
melodic similarities between the subject and
one in Bach’s
Art of Fugue
.
Wie Melodien zieht es mir
, op. 105, no. 1
(performed on violin and piano from the vocal score)
Brahms routinely spent summers outside the
city of Vienna in a scenic location near friends
and artistic colleagues. In 1886, his seasonal
retreat moved from Mürzzuschlag, the Styrian
town southwest of Vienna where Brahms had
composed his Symphony No. 4 the previous two
summers, to the central Swiss village of Hofstet-
ten, situated in the Bernese Oberland region of
the Alps. From an elevated vantage point on the
second-story porch of his rented house, Brahms
enjoyed a panoramic view of the mountains.
Nearby, he could watch the placid, cool waters
of the Aare River pour into Lake Thun. The
Swiss writer and critic Josef Viktor Widmann
assumed the role of local host, whose home in
Bern the composer invaded most every week-
end. Hermine Spies—Brahms’s favorite sing-
er—joined the company for relaxation and an
occasional Lieder performance.
The combination of breathtaking landscape and
genial companionship inspired an extraordinary
summertime compositional output that includ-
ed the Violin Sonata No. 2 and portions of No. 3,
the Piano Trio No. 3, the Cello Sonata No. 2,
and several Lieder that would eventually join
his opp. 104 and 105 sets. The first two songs of
op. 105—
Wie Melodien zieht es mir
and
Immer
leiser wird mein Schlummer
—immortalized the
rich, warm contralto voice of Hermine Spies,
who gave their premieres during the summer of
1886 with the composer at the piano. Brahms se-
lected unusually philosophical verse (in the es-
timation of his friend Elisabeth von Herzogen-
berg) by the lesser-known Low-German poet
Klaus Groth (1819–99): “Like melodies, thoughts
pass quietly through my mind.” Brahms quoted
a motive from this song in his Violin Sonata
No. 2 in A major, op. 100, a musical reference
made “in expectation of the arrival of a dear lady
friend”—Hermine Spies.
Viola Sonata in F minor, op. 120, no. 1
Late in life, Brahms developed a fascination for
the warm and agile sound of the clarinet. He
admired the instrument’s tremendous expres-
sive capabilities, especially as demonstrated by
Richard Mühlfeld, a member of the Meiningen
Court Orchestra whose solo performances of
works by Mozart and Weber enthralled the aged
composer. Mühlfeld later played his boxwood
Georg Ottensteiner instrument in a private re-
cital for Brahms, who asked many questions
about repertoire and technique. Employing his
typical wry wit, the composer expressed affec-
tion for the clarinetist by introducing him as
“Fräulein von Mühlfeld, my prima donna.”
Another outgrowth of this newly formed friend-
ship came in the form of Brahms’s final three
chamber opuses: the Trio for Clarinet, Cello,
and Piano in A minor, op. 114 (1891); the Quin-
tet for Clarinet and Strings in B minor, op. 115
(1891); and the paired Clarinet Sonatas, op. 120.
He completed the two sonatas at his summer
residence in Ischl during July 1894, but mistak-
enly wrote “1895” on the autograph manuscript.
Brahms and Mühlfeld gave the premieres days
apart in 1895: No. 2 in E-flat major on January 8,
Johannes Brahms
Josef Gänsbacher
Hermine Spies (1887)
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