After leaving his parents’ waterfront dive in Hamburg, Brahms had spent his early professional career traveling around Europe with the showboating gypsy violinist Eduard Remenyi as “The Ed & Jo Show”. As a result, Brahms knew his gypsy music and Hungarian dances. All that hard work paid off now.
Fasten your seat belts for some real fun.
This movement returns to G minor and is marked “presto”, which means it’s to be played very rapidly. It’s in 2/4 time, and Brahms also marks it “rondo in the gypsy style”. This is the movement that brought people to their feet when Clara Schumann premiered it. There is nothing else quite like it in the chamber repertory.
It starts off with an initial theme in G minor.
At 1:02, the second theme in B-flat major is a run on the piano while the strings play pizzicato. I have this image of Brahms giggling insanely when he wrote this passage.
At 1:57, he brings back the initial theme, but shortened.
At 2:28, he brings in his third theme in G Major, marked “meno presto”. It’s a Hungarian czardas.
At 3:15, he brings in his fourth theme in E minor, an extension of the czardas idea.
At 4:49, he returns to the second theme, but in G Major. He uses it as a buildup to the return to the czardas.
At 5:37, we’re back to G minor for a buildup to a piano cadenza that is Brahms’ idea of a gypsy violin passage written for piano. Emmanuel Ax schmalzes it up beautifully.
This is followed by a buildup to a return to the initial theme. But this time he marks that theme “molto presto”, which means “put the pedal to the metal.” Audiences always go nuts at the end, and now you’ll understand why.
Man, watch that cellist saw! (That’s Yo-Yo Ma, I believe)
The piano player has a page turner. I don’t know if the others had assistants.