They liked the symphony in Karlsruhe. Mannheim was polite. Munich didn’t go for it, but Wagner owned that city so the reception was understandable. Now it was time to play the palace. It was time for Vienna.
Brahms was a nervous wreck at the rehearsals. At the concert a week before Christmas, the Viennese were polite, but not enthusiastic about the symphony. It would take a while before they understood what he had accomplished. Leipzig showed it respect, much to Brahms’ surprise, and Clara, who was hearing it for the first time, loved it.
After Beethoven, Wagner had declared the symphony to be dead. Brahms singlehandedly resurrected it, and he surpassed himself in doing so. In the long run of Brahm’s career, this was the peak, and he was never to surpass himself again.
A witness to a performance of this symphony under Brahms’ baton clocked it at 41 minutes without the repeat of the first movement exposition. Modern performances run 50 to 55 minutes which means that something has been lost since 1876. Roger Norrington’s up-tempo interpretation is not available on Youtube, but I found a vinyl recording from the Fifties that comes in at 46 minutes with repeat, and the tempi feel right. This is a complete recording of all four movements.
The beginning is marked “Poco sostenuto”, which is not the dirge performed by so many today. The opening is spine tingling, with the tympani hammering out a “fate” motif under a string line that plunges the listener into a dark and unstable world. At 2:30 the first subject begins in 6/8, and it is formed from two themes of the introduction joined in counterpoint. At 4:12 the second subject appears in E-flat. At 5:37 Brahms uses no first ending, but goes right back to the exposition where you don’t expect it, and it’s a shock! At 8:45 he starts his development section. His recapitulation begins in the wrong key at 11:39, but he modulates into C minor so smoothly you barely notice it. At 14:37 he begins a coda that brings the movement to a pensive close with the drumbeats of the introduction leaving the question open.
At 15:55 the slow movement in E Major is in ternary (A-B-A) format. He ends it with a heartfelt violin solo that sings in the stratosphere.
At 25:00 the third movement in A-flat is not a scherzo but a short intermezzo with the first part in duple time. The clarinet theme is exquisite. At 26:38 the middle section is in triple time and builds to a climax. What dissonance in the winds! At 28:18 the opening returns but with bits of the middle section under it, ending in triple time.
At 29:42 the finale starts in C minor, bringing back the darkness of the first movement with a very long introduction. At 32:21 the horn shines through in C Major with a theme Jo had sketched on the back of a postcard he had sent to Clara eight years earlier. The horn is echoed by the flute and then joined by the trombones in a wind choir. At 34:30 the first subject of the sonata-rondo movement comes in on the cellos in C Major, and it’s Brahms’ answer to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. The second subject comes in at 36:17. At 38:14 development begins with the first subject veering off from C into E-flat. At 41:32 the horn theme begins the recapitulation, skipping the first subject and going straight into the second. At 44:10 the coda begins as the sky goes dark, the clouds roll in, and the rains fall. Brahms works his way to a triumphal conclusion in C Major.