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Wednesday 23 May, 7.30pm
Alasdair Nicolson The Broken Symphony, Part 1:
(BBC commission: world premiere)
BRAHMS SYMPHONY NO 3 in F MAJOR Op 90
Alasdair Nicolson The Broken Symphony, Part 2:
Beethoven Concerto in D major for Violin and Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
David Zinman conductor
Julia Fischer violin
Barbican Hall, Barbican Centre, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
Book tickets
What makes this Symphony so Great?
At the heart of Brahms's Third Symphony lies the conflict between happiness and profound sadness, expressed in a three-note theme that recurs throughout the work. The composer's long-standing friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim, once suggested the use of the notes F-A-E, frei aber einsam ('free but lonely'), as his per personal motto, which Brahms countered with F-A-F, frei aber froh ('free but happy'). Certainly, the latter idea is heard at the beginning of the Third Symphony, appearing at times throughout the work and perhaps reflecting the 50-year-old composer's personal contentment. Hans Richter gave the premiere of the Third Symphony in Vienna on 2 December 1883, declaring the passionate, spontaneous work to be 'Brahms's Eroica '.
Five years later, the German music critic and historian Hermann Kretschmar neatly summarised the symphony's place in the development of Brahms's mature style. "It shows us the composer advancing steadily along the path of a noble popularity. The subjective aspect of development recedes more and more into the background; the ideas and their representation cleave to a sphere which is understandable and comprehensible to everyone." As clear and comprehensible as the Third Symphony undoubtedly is, we are drawn as much by its subjective, impassioned character. Kretschmar's analysis served to underline the fact that Brahms was not Wagner, part of a wider cultural battle between competing musical ideologies.
"The Third Symphony of Brahms may perhaps represent the point of departure of a new epoch in the history of the symphonic art," observed Kretschmar. Thanks to its influence in later years on Schoenberg and many others, it did. Composers, critics and music lovers were captivated by the concision of Brahms's writing and, above all, by the Third Symphony's effortless lyricism. The composer's passionate side, so often hidden beneath his orderly bourgeois image, bubbles to the surface in the work's slow movement and continues to colour the finale's ambivalent character.
(c) Andrew Stewart 2006
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