The Brahms Concerto was first performed in Leipzig Germany on New Year’s Day 1879 by Joseph Joachim, who composed the cadenza that is still played by many violinists today. Never fond of waste, Brahms presents his first movement’s main theme as a bare unison at the very start of the work. Eight measures later the oboe offers something nearer to a scale; eight measures further on the full orchestra dwells on leaping octaves.
Gradually the thematic material finds its place, some presented by the orchestra, more provided by the soloist after he has flexed his muscles. Eventually we reach a gloriously lyrical second subject, which seems to express the very soul of the violin. The finest moment is reserved for the coda, after the cadenza, when the soloist soars higher and higher in dreamy flight before a final resumption of the main tempo.
The slow movement opens with a long theme for the oboe with wind accompaniment. When the soloist takes it up, the strings accompany, and the textures and harmonies become gradually more adventurous, only brought back to earth for the return of the main theme and the main key.
The final movement is a tribute to Joachim’s Hungarian birth. But as with Joachim himself, who never returned to Hungary or sympathized with its nationalist causes, other themes of a quite un-Hungarian character intervene, including a dynamic rising scale in octaves and a beautifully lyrical episode where the meter changes briefly from a stamping 2/4 to a gentle 3/4.
The final switch to a 6/8 pulse with heavy off-beats is one of Brahms’ stranger inventions, and the dying decline of the last few bars brings the work to a close.
Here is Pinchas Zukerman to play this masterpiece for you:
