Symphony No. 4 in E Minor |
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Composed: 1884-85 First Performed: October 25, 1885 Peak: -- Sales (in millions): -- Genre: classical > symphony |
Parts/Movements:
Average Duration: 40:30 |
Rating: 4.562 out of 5.00 (average of 6 ratings)
Awards:(Click on award to learn more).
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About the Work:“The symphonies of Johannes Brahms are built on granite foundations – solid musical ideas that can initially seem less than sexy. Where Beethoven seeks to push limits of harmony, phrase, length, and rhythm, Brahms…establishes a comfortable basic perimeter, and lever lets the heavy machinery venture outside of it. His four pieces for orchestra represent a scholarly consolidation of everything he knew; he didn’t begin writing symphonies until after he turned forty,” TM completing his first one at age 43.“The composer’s output to that point suggests a conscious process of self-education. A number of smaller-scale orchestral works, including the Variations on a Theme of Haydn and the proto-symphonic Piano Concerto No. 1, suggest preparation for what Brahms clearly saw as the elusive of compositional enterprises. He was to meet the challenge with a skill and individual spirit, one of Classicism refracted through the prism of high romanticism, that led many to pronounce him heir to Beethoven.” AM
The First Movement:“Each of the movements bears the distinct stamp of the composer’s personality. The first begins with a theme in E minor based upon the interval of a third, which also provides a structural and motivic foundation for the remainder of the work. There is a notable sense of unrest from beginning to end, and the tragic, even fatalistic atmosphere is further and stunningly underlined by the final, minor-key plagal (IV-I) cadence.” AMThe Second Movement:“The second movement, which opens with a brief, melancholy sort of fanfare, gives way to the quietly accompanied winds in perhaps one of the loveliest of any of the composer’s themes, granted particular plangency through the use of the flat sixth and seventh scale degrees borrowed from the minor mode. This material is gradually developed into soaring, tutti lyricism that fades into ethereal quiet.” AMThe Third Movement:“The third movement, a lusty, stomping, duple dance, proved so popular in Brahms’ lifetime that audiences constantly demanded that it be repeated.” AMThe Fourth Movement:The last movement is perhaps most notable of all, cast as it is in the ‘archaic’ Baroque form of a chaconne — variations over a ground bass. The chaconne’s subject is in fact a slight modification of that used by Bach in his Cantata No. 150; though deceptively simple — essentially an ascending minor scale segment from the tonic note to the dominant, then a leap back to the tonic — Brahms uses this skeleton as the basis for an increasingly elaborate and thematic harmonic framework. From its first presentation, which is not as a bass line, but as a theme in the winds, Brahms gradually weaves some 34 variations that steadily build in intensity, as though in defiance to the oppressive, insistent rotation of the ground. The final variations lead directly into an ending which reconfirms the weight of tragedy and pathos borne by the first movement.” AMThe finale “is like a dying man’s flashback dream, with scenes of tragedy and joy bursting forth and then receding over a recurring pattern of eight chords. Brahms treats each event as a discrete scene, supporting them with slight changes of color, piling world upon world in a way that makes the mood swings consistently surprising.” TM |
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Last updated 2/27/2026. |
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