Brahms - String Quartet No.1 in C minor Op.51, No.1 - IV. Allegro
79 views · Published 21 May 2016 · 6:25 · Indexed 20 September 2026
Channel: LIMO Recording Studio · 2016 · Music
String Quartet No.1, Op.51 No.1 Johannes Brahms completed his Quartet no. 1 in C minor in 1873, and published it toghether with his second quartet as Op. 51. Brahms regarded the string quartet, toghether with the symphony, as a very important genre (with Beethoven's works in the field considered definitive and exerting a paralyzing influence over him). He reportedly destroyed some twenty string quartets before allowing the two Op. 51 quartets to be published. He wrote the pieces slowly, with many practice runs and at least one secret performance held, after which Brahms re-wrote parts of the music. They are dedicated to his friend Theodor Billroth. The no. 1 quartet is remarkable for its organic unity and for the harmonically sophisticated, "orchestrally inclined" outer movements that bracket its more intimate inner movements. Structurally and thematically, the first movement shows the influence of Schubert's Quartettsatz, D. 703, also in C minor. The quartet consists of four movements. Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene. In his lifetime, Brahms' popularity and influence were considerable; following a comment by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow, he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the Three Bs. Brahms composed for piano, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, and for voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works; he also worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim.
