Johannes Brahms – Concerto in A Minor for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra, op. 102 (“Double”)
Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833 in Hamburg and died in Vienna on April 3, 1897. One of the dominant composers of the late nineteenth century, Brahms greatly enriched the repertory for piano, organ, chamber music, chorus, and orchestra. His “Double” Concerto was composed in 1887 and was first performed in Cologne on October 15 of that same year withBrahms leading the Gürzenich Orchestra and Joseph Joachim and Robert Hausmann as soloists.The work is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.
An entry in Clara Schumann’s diary for 21 September 1887 reveals that Brahms’s “Double” Concerto was, “in a way, a work of reconciliation–Joachim and Brahms have spoken to one another again after years of silence.” Joseph Joachim was the great violinist and friend of Brahms who had, in 1879, received the dedication to, and given the first performance of, the composer’s towering Violin Concerto. There were many reasons why Brahms and Joachim had drifted apart, but a real crisis in their relationship was precipitated when Joachim, in a fit of jealousy, accused his wife Amalie of infidelity. Brahms’s sense of justice forced him to take sides with Amalie, and he sent her a letter in which he made several thorny comments about her husband. When this letter surfaced during a court hearing, Joachim understandably felt betrayed, and he broke off all contact with his former friend. Brahms made several efforts, largely unsuccessful, to patch up their relationship. The composition of this concerto, and its subsequent performance on October 15, 1887, finally brought the two friends back together. Joachim and Robert Hausmann were the soloists on this occasion, and Brahms himself conducted. The “Double” Concerto, as fate would have it, proved to be the composer’s final work for orchestra.
Since no precedent existed for combining the violin and cello as co-soloists (unless one wishes to cite the Beethoven “Triple” Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Piano), this work may be regarded as a unique experiment. The work’s success may be attributed, of course, to Brahms’s genius, but the skill of the performers for whom he wrote it must also be considered. Brahms had shown his love for the cello through many of his previous chamber works, as well as in how he treated the instrument in orchestral settings, especially the extended solo passages for cello in the slow movement of his Piano Concerto no. 2. Brahms had precious few models for concertos for this instrument to study. It is particularly revealing, however, to read his remarks written in the last year of his life after having heard Hausmann play Dvorák’s Cello Concerto, lamenting, “Had I known that such a cello concerto as that could be written I would have tried to compose one myself.” Although cellists may lament that this revelation came too late for Brahms, at least they can take pleasure in the fact that Brahms permitted their instrument to share the limelight in this fiery and expansive work.
The work’s first movement, Allegro, is a stern affair with an unusual opening gesture. The orchestra’s muscular opening theme is interrupted by a statement the solo cello, marked “in modo d’un recitativo, ma sempre in tempo,” an indication that harkens back to the contrabass/cello instrumental recitative found in the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The orchestra responds with a new and gentler theme with is taken up at first by the solo violin, soon to be joined by the cello, all leading to a full-throated orchestral tutti. Once that is accomplished, the movement proceeds with the musical material just laid out. As with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, which also opens with broad statements by the soloist, there is no cadenza toward the end of the movement. The second movement is marked Andante and also opens with an arresting gesture. with pair of horns in octaves present a rising fourth (A – D), answered by the woodwinds with another rising fourth (E – A). This idea is immediately taken up and expanded by the soloists into a ravishing melody.
The finale, Vivace non troppo, is a Gypsy-like affair, perhaps offered by Brahms as a friendly gesture to his friend Joachim’s Hungarian roots.
Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2007/2026
Johannes Brahms – Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90
Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833 in Hamburg and died in Vienna on April 3, 1897. One of the dominant composers of the late nineteenth century, Brahms greatly enriched the repertory for piano, organ, chamber music, chorus, and orchestra. His Symphony no. 3 was composed in 1883 and was first performed in Vienna on December 2 of that year with the Vienna Philharmonic under the direction of Hans Richter. The work is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabasson, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.
The Third Symphony of Brahms is at once the shortest, simplest and the most complex of the four symphonies he composed between 1876 and 1884. The year of the composition of the Third Symphony, 1883, marked thirty years since the publication of the article, “New Paths,” that appeared in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, written by his mentor, Robert Schumann, and that touted the then twenty-year-old Brahms as the legitimate heir to Beethoven’s muse. The year was also marked by the death, on February13, of Richard Wagner—a figure who believed that only he himself was entitled to that lofty claim. Brahms’s indebtedness to Schumann is clearly evident in the Third Symphony, which echoes Schumann’s own Symphony no. 3. Common wisdom dictated that Brahms and Wagner were representatives of two mutually exclusive artistic positions, but from musical grounds, there are compelling reasons to call this view into question.
Both Brahms and Wagner were symphonic composers grounded solidly in thenine symphonies of Beethoven. The principal difference lays in their artistic goals, but not always in the means used to attain them. Wagner focused (almost) exclusively on opera, while Brahms continued to compose symphonies, sonatas, chamber music, Lieder, choral music, and in other traditional instrumental genres. What might be identified as a Wagnerian feature in Brahms’s Third Symphony is the application of leitmotif-style techniques that serve to unify its four movements, often in a highly dramatic fashion. The most important of these motives is presented in the first three measures of the work (F, A-flat, to the F an octave higher). The influence of this motto, often identified as a cypher for Frei aber froh (“Happy, but free”), pervades the entire piece, sometimes in hidden or transformed ways, a favorite device of Wagner. Schumann, as we know, also was fond ofusing musical codes of this type. Interestingly, the transition from the opening theme to the second key area of the symphony’s first movement presents an unusual chord found in the “Sirens’chorus” from Act One of Wagner’s Tannhäuser. We know that Brahms admired this opera greatly, and he even possessed its autograph manuscript for a while. It is quite possible that Brahms’s use of this chord was in memory of his deceased “rival.”
But if we permit Brahms to remain the bastion of abstract musical logic devoid of poetic text, this motto is a significant gesture for its melodic and harmonic implications- especially in the symphony’s finale. Another case is the serene second theme from the second movement. The return of the descending arpeggio theme in the finale’s coda, a musical gesture first heard in the earliest moments of the first movement serves to confirm the symphony’s cyclic nature. Another example of the work’s interconnectedness is the appearance of mysterious chords in the second movement that reappear unexpectedly and with great dramatic impact in the development section of the finale.
The true beauty of the Third Symphony is that its complexity is couched in the surroundings of the simplest and most appealing melodiousness. Brahms possessed the gift of creating tension through modal and metrical ambiguity—techniques that he learned from the study of music of Schubert and Schumann. The rhythmic complexities of this symphony are extraordinary, even for Brahms, and the conflict of the major and minor modes remain unresolved until near the end of the work.
Program Note by David B. Levy, © 1995/2018/2026
