6/1 – Johannes Brahms: String Sextet No. 1 in B-Flat Major, Op. 18

Chamber music concerts are often organized around string quartets: music for two violins, viola, and cello, a form and style first developed in the mid-18th century by Josef Haydn, and employed by virtually every major composer of Western classical music from then on, continuing into our own time. Brahms, the outstanding instrumental composer of the 19th-century German Romantic era, wrote several string quartets, but also explored expansions of the quartet medium into string quintets–two violins, two violas, one cello–and string sextets: two of each instrument.

One reason sextets are rarer than quartets is that there can be so many balance problems. The low-voiced cellos and midrange violas can potentially overpower the higher-toned, lighter-sounding violins and make the whole piece unacceptably bass-heavy. But Brahms took on this challenge to satisfy his fondness for rich, mellow sonorities, and for intricate combinations of different musical lines: melodies, counter-melodies, and accompaniments, six separate parts to exploit, not just four. With great care and thorough knowledge of the skills of composition, he created two sextets in which no one register or tone color dominates the others. He placed a high value on getting things right through hard work: “Without craftsmanship,” he said, “inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind.”

He worked on the Sextet in B-Flat Major, Op. 18, between 1858 and 1860, about the same time as he finished a better-known piece, the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in D Minor. On both, the self-critical young composer, almost neurotically lacking in confidence, took advice from two friends he valued all his life for their care, concern, and helpful criticisms: the violinist Joseph Joachim and the pianist Clara Wieck Schumann (both of whom were also composers).

The first cello introduces the opening theme of the “Allegro ma non troppo,” an expansive, relaxed, richly lyrical movement patterned in sonata form–exposition, development, and recapitulation, though instead of having two principal themes, the usual sonata-form number, this movement has three. The first two form the basis for the development. In both the first and second movements, Brahms specifically asks for moderate speeds. The  second movement, which is mostly in the key of D Minor, is structured as a theme with six variations. The melodic patterns and their accompanying figures all undergo subtle elaborations; variation was one of Brahms’ favorite procedures, and this movement is a wonderful example of it.

The very short Scherzo is livelier and brighter, packing a lot of animation and cheer into about three minutes. The finale is a rondo: a piece built around one main theme that recurs several times, with contrasting tunes to separate the recurrences. “Grazioso,” graceful, is a term Brahms often inserted into his tempo indications, a favorite way he liked his music to be played. And graceful describes this movement best, as the instruments dance through a wealth of melodies from Brahms’ fertile imagination.