The some two-dozen chamber music works of Brahms constitute the most significant contribution to the genre in the Romantic style after those of Robert Schumann. He began at the age of twenty-one with a piano trio, a “large, extravagant” work. It featured a multiplicity of themes, a new development section in the recapitulation, and a fast section in the slow movement—to name a few innovations. This imaginative approach to every aspect of the norms of the time came to characterize almost all of his work. Not to mention his innate proclivity for ruthless revisions—even decades later—and his complete destruction of the many works that failed to meet his high expectations.
Brahms composed three piano quartets, the first two in 1861, when he was twenty-eight, and they exemplify his predilection for pushing boundaries, with multiplicities of themes, and contrasting tonalities, and more. But, these are not juvenile works–they’re magnificent. The third piano quartet in C# minor was begun during the tumultuous years of 1854-55, when Robert Schumann’s health had totally deteriorated. Brahms spent much time during these sad years with Robert’s wife—and life’s love—Clara. Three movements of that piano quartet were completed, but Brahms laid it aside unfinished. Many chamber works followed, until after a hiatus of eight years from 1865 until 1873, the two op. 51 string quartets appeared. By then he had written and destroyed almost two-dozen string quartets! Soon thereafter, in 1875, Brahms finally took up the uncompleted C# minor piano quartet. He transposed the key to C minor, and replaced the scherzo and finale with new movements. In that form the op. 60 C minor quartet was published.
The first movement (originally dating from 1855) is marked by bold experiments in sonata form. After stentorian C and Bb octaves in the piano, with dark “sighing” responses in the strings, the stormy first theme is announced. Shortly, the sighs form the transition to the winsome second theme in Eb, for which the composer imaginatively, without delay, writes four short variations. The development is a wild and extensive one, with visits to some remote keys. Brahms’ superb mastery of counterpoint is in full bloom, throughout. A surprising modulation leads back to the recapitulation, introduced by the “sighing” motive. And it is a complex recap, with plenty of deceptive forays into distant keys, and yet more development of ideas. The second theme is heard not in the usual tonic C of a recapitulation, but in G! A striking characteristic—and one found rarely in all the literature—is Brahms’ seeming avoidance of firmly establishing the tonic in the recapitulation—of all places. Only very near the end are the harmonic disjunctions abated, with C minor finally—and quietly–established. A most expansive movement, indeed.
The scherzo is a wild, frenetic affair, careening from beginning to end with only a few moments of respite. The vigorous main idea is heard right off in the piano, and it drives the whole work. But, it doesn’t take long before the quiet, modest second theme is heard, but only a few repeated soft notes. He doesn’t make much of it, but it is an important marker when he does. The usual approach for scherzos is to place a distinct, contrasting section in the middle as a “Trio,” with its own key. Not so here. Brahms chooses to charge right through, primarily continuing to develop the main idea. Unlike the harmonic ambiguity of the first movement, there is no doubt here that the key is C minor. But, Brahms is Brahms, and he surprises us at the end with the brief tag in C major.
The composer’s slow movements are always eagerly anticipated, and this one doesn’t disappoint. It’s one of his most glorious, the main tune heard—like the Schumann quartet, before—first in the ‘cello. Brahms aficionados will relish the composer’s choice for the third note of the melody, with his signature half diminished seventh chord—Romantic harmony writ large. Throughout the movement Brahms pulls seeming new, but clearly related, motives out of the opening material. The piano generally allows the three strings to take the lead, in exquisite counterpoint. And of course, the whole texture is permeated with his signature slip-sliding suspended harmonies and complex counter rhythms—all making this Brahms at his most quintessentially personal.
The last movement is as dark in mood as much of the preceding has been. To the melancholy main theme heard immediately in the violin, Brahms crafts the flowing piano accompaniment from Mendelssohn’s op. 66 piano trio in C minor. A stormy development of the idea, enhanced by Brahms signature “two against three” rhythms leads to the second main idea. Along the way, attentive listeners will hear the famous opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in the bass—unmistakable, intentional or not. The second theme is a soft, simple chordal affair in the usual relative major, and quickly ends the exposition.
The development is the meat of this stormy movement. Brahms lets the strings explore the lyrical lines of the theme, and puts all of the “storm” into the varied, weft of piano textures that accompany them. Distant keys are the norm, as well, while all of the familiar elements are thoroughly worked through. The recapitulation is straightforward, but with the second theme given a passage in C major, ending with piano finally getting to play the chordal passage boldly in double hands full of half notes. An angry passage back in C minor leads to the soft arabesque at the end, punctuated by an emphatic ending in C major.
It’s generally risky to pull much of a composers’ lives into interpretations of their compositions, but this magnificent work unmistakably bears evidence of the dark times undergone by Brahms and Clara Schumann during its conception.
–Wm. E. Runyan
©2025 William E. Runyan