Johannes Brahms_ A Biography - Jan Swafford [398]
15. Litzmann Schumann/Brahms Letters 9/30/1859.
16. Keys 30.
17. Kalbeck I, 396–7.
18. Litzmann Schumann/Brahms Letters 11/9/1859.
19. S. Drinker (68) says “the public appearance of a Ladies’ Choral Society was quite unusual” at that time, and Brahms’s concerts with them were pioneering in that respect.
20. Bickley Joachim Letters 12/31/1859. The best guess is that Joachim is talking about the D Major, in its final version.
21. S. Drinker 49.
22. May 265–6.
23. Bickley Joachim Letters 191–2.
24. Trans. in May 269–70.
25. Gal 31.
26. Quoted in Weiss/Taruskin 380.
27. Walker 339.
28. Quoted in Weiss/Taruskin 382.
29. Quoted in Gal 34.
30. Walker 348.
31. Litzmann Life 178.
32. MacDonald 57.
CHAPTER TEN
1. Litzmann Schumann/Brahms Letters 4/26/1860.
2. Litzmann Life 181.
3. Drinker 51.
4. Laura Garbe was upset at this affectionate dig at her lateness until Clara pointed out that it would secure her a place in history (Drinker 56).
5. Litzmann Schumann/Brahms Letters 4/2/1860.
6. S. Drinker 60.
7. Litzmann Schumann/Brahms Letters 6/21/1860.
8. Kalbeck I, 414.
9. Kalbeck I, 132.
10. The measure grouping of the first four phrases in the B Sextet is 2+2+1, then 3+1 before a series of two-bar phrases. Throughout the first movement, Brahms likewise plays off irregular against even groupings. The final rondo, which begins like the first movement with a lyric cello theme, seems almost teasingly stuck in two-bar units for some time—followed, naturally, by a surge of irregular phrasing and syncopation.
11. Translation from Braus 148. Braus also quotes another entry on form from the “Schatzkästlein”: “I can neither sculpt nor tailor my work in compliance with the latest fashion: newness and originality happen of themselves, without my having to think about it.” That may express Brahms’s determination not to make a fetish of originality as the New Germans did, but we will see that over the years he consistently came up with fresh approaches to traditional formal patterns. Rather than always taking the words of the “Schatzkästlein” as his ultimate destination, it might be better to think of them as a youthful foundation that in some degree he grew beyond. True, the treatment of form in the first movement of the D Minor Piano Concerto is relatively free, far more so than the later B Sextet; but that seems more a result of serendipity than planning—the movement was first drafted in a rush of emotion after Schumann’s suicide attempt, and probably despite much revision retained some of its initial improvisatory looseness. In contrast, Brahms’s later games with sonata form are more purposeful and controlled.
13. Litzmann Life 188.
14. S. Drinker 67–8.
15. Litzmann Life 189.
16. Gal 232.
17. Litzmann Life 196.
18. Litzmann Schumann Brahms Letters 2/13/1861.
19. Reich 157.
20. Litzmann Life 244.
21. E. Schumann 72–3.
22. E. Schumann 87.
23. S. Drinker 69.
24. Keys 41.
25. S. Drinker 70.
26. Niemann 169.
27. Dietrich/Widmann 37–8. The toy soldiers are variously described as tin or lead. Brahms probably had both, grouped in collections.
28. Kalbeck I, 443.
29. May 284–5.
30. Rosen Sonata Forms 3.
31. Litzmann Life 200.
32. Litzmann Schumann/Brahms Letters 7/29/1861. Clara declared a variant (more or less inversion) of the second theme “too commonplace for Johannes Brahms.” He left it there.
33. As testament of his admiration for “Brahms the Progressive” and in recognition of the orchestral scope of the G Minor, Schoenberg arranged the whole piano quartet for orchestra. In a number of Brahms’s chamber pieces there is a sense that the music could work as well in another medium—just as in reality the F Minor Piano Quintet began as a string quintet and was made into a two-piano sonata before it found its final form.
34. Sisman 133.
35. Joachim said that ideas for the G Minor and A Major Piano quartets traced back to the same time as the unfinished