Subscription Concerts 2023-2024Program A
No. 2007 Subscription (Program A)

Ever since Beethoven (1770–1827) unveiled his Symphony No. 5 (Fate) in 1808, C minor’s connection with darkness and anguish has been an unconcealed fact in the symphonic sphere. The German giant of indomitable will led C minor to C major triumphantly in his No. 5 following the spirit of “per aspera ad astra (through hardships to the stars),” which obviously inspired Franz Schubert (1797–1828)’s No. 4 and Brahms’ undermentioned No. 1. Entitled Tragische (Tragic) by Schubert himself, No. 4 is the first of only two symphonies he set in a minor key along with the famous Die Unvollendete (Unfinished) in B minor.
Born in Vienna, Schubert was a precocious musical genius. His family introduced him to music before he enrolled the Stadtkonvikt (imperial seminary), where he studied composition. While in school, he became familiar with Classical works by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and he performed in and conducted the seminary’s student orchestra. He then entered the teaching profession, before composing the Symphonies No. 4 and No. 5 in 1816, his nineteenth year.
No. 4’s opening movement has an ominous slow introduction. The faster main section in sonata form lets strings give the first theme, suggestive of Beethoven’s C-minor String Quartet op. 18-4. The next slow movement is full of Schubertian tunefulness, while the third movement is a scherzo-like minuet with inventive rhythms. The symphony’s finale, as with the first movement, witnesses C minor giving way to C major.

[Kumiko Nishi]

Schubert remained obscure all his life, his abovementioned No. 4 being premiered publicly more than two decades after his death as is often the case with his works. Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), in contrast, leaped into fame overnight at age 20, thanks to the glowing praise for him that the composer and critic Robert Schumann (1810–1856) released to the public in 1853.
Brahms, now a promising composer, began to gestate his first symphony around 1855. However, he felt extreme pressure to extend the symphonic history, which seemed to be already concluded by Beethoven the giant. Also due to his highly self-critical nature, Brahms completed his No. 1 over twenty years later in 1876, on top of that, he revised it next year after hearing the premiere. Everything comes to those who wait: the conductor Hans von Bülow famously applauded it as “Beethoven’s Tenth.” This work indeed shows the greatest respect for Beethoven’s legacy, at once being a veritable “Brahms’ First” of his own voice.
Although a product of the Romantic era, Brahms’ No. 1 has the almost same instrumentation as Beethoven’s No. 5. The austere introduction opens Brahms’ No. 1, stating the C/C-sharp/D motif over timpani pounding. This chromatic three-note motto would recur in diverse forms throughout the symphony following Beethoven’s meticulous motivic development. The absence of minuet/scherzo movement may surprise listeners familiar with the genre of symphony: here Brahms strikes out in a new direction proposing a brief graceful interlude prior to the last movement. The finale’s dark introduction beginning in C minor reaches the C-major “Alphorn melody” blown by horns: from Switzerland, Brahms had sent a birthday card with this melody to his muse Clara (Schuman’s wife) penning below it the following words: “High on the mountains, deep in the valleys, I greet you a thousand times!” The ensuing main sonata section could be likened to a hymn to C major, with the lyrical first theme bearing a great resemblance to Beethoven’s An die Freude (Ode to Joy) tune from his Symphony No. 9.

[Kumiko Nishi]