ExclusiveBrahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90 - II. Andante

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F Major, Op. 90 - II. Andante. This beautiful piece was played by Musopen Symphony. It has creative commons license (Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal), and is provided through musopen.org.

In 1853, when he was just 20 years old, Schumann proclaimed Brahms 'the young eagle' and made the following prophecy "If he will sink his magic staff … where the capacity of masses in chorus and orchestra can lend him its powers, still more wonderful glimpses into the mysteries of the spirit world will be before us."

Encouraged by Schumann to undertake a symphony, Brahms made some attempts in 1854 but he was unsatisfied with the symphonic potential of the sketches and diverted them into the First piano Concerto and the German Requiem. Over the next 20 years, his publisher nagged and his friends beseeched him for a symphony. In 1872, he finally exploded at conductor Hermann Levi: "I shall never write a symphony! You can't have any idea what it's like always to hear such a giant marching behind you!"

The giant, of course, was Beethoven. His nine symphonies were, for Brahms, the apotheosis of the symphonic form; beside them, Brahms found his own symphonic efforts utterly inadequate. It was the success of the Variations on a Theme by Haydn (1873) that seemed to convince Brahms that he could complete a symphony. When he completed his Symphony No. 1, in 1876, Brahms was already 43.

Work on his Third Symphony began in 1882 and completed it at Wiesbaden during the summer of 1883. The symphony’s dramatic conflict is posed at the very beginning of the work, in the three-note motif that pervades the first movement and reappears in the fourth. The letters of the motif (F, A-flat, F) are said to stand for the composer’s personal credo, Frei aber froh (“Free but glad”) which has been interpreted in any number of ways by generations of musicians, musicologists, critics, and audiences.

The video was captured by Christian Schlegel and edited by Wenjing Ma.

#classicalmusic, #Music, #古典音樂, #klassischemusik, #GJWexclusive, #Switzerland, #Schweiz, #Natur, #Nature, #KlassischeMusikundNatur, #ClassicalMusicAndNature, #古典音樂小站,