Egmont Overture (1810)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Run Time: Approx. 8 minutes

 

In the years following the French Revolution, Beethoven was a great admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte. He saw him—as many did at first—as a self-made revolutionary who would bring democracy to Europe. On the cusp of the Napoleonic Wars, Beethoven was completing his third symphony, which he had reverently inscribed with the subtitle “Intitolata Bonaparte.” The story goes that when, in 1804, Beethoven learned that Napoleon had declared himself Emperor of France, the composer flew into a fit of rage, violently scratching “Bonaparte” from the top of his manuscript, and replacing it with the word “Eroica” or “Heroic.” “Now he, too, will tread underfoot all the rights of man,” he declared, and “indulge only his ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men [and] become a tyrant!”

Unfortunately, Beethoven’s original biographers Anton Schindler and Ferdinand Ries were somewhat prone to exaggeration. We can never know if this is what truly happened, although the surviving manuscript certainly bears the evidence of one very scratched out “Bonaparte.”  What we do know is that Beethoven was strongly inclined toward democratic ideas, once writing, “To do good whenever one can, to love liberty above all else, never to deny the truth, even though it be before the throne.”

Beethoven was right to be upset; Napoleon spent the next decade invading all over Europe, including twice in his home of Austria. The 1809 attack on Vienna forced the composer to evacuate, sending him to his brother for refuge, where he spent much of the event with pillows over his ears desperately trying to protect what little remained of his hearing.

Just a few months later, Beethoven was approached to compose the incidental music for a play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe about the heroic life of Lamoral, count of Egmont from the Low Countries (now known as the Netherlands,) who takes a valiant stand against oppression, laying down his life in the name of liberty. It must have been a no-brainer.

With his overture, Beethoven provides a perfect preparation for Goethe’s politically charged tale. The heavy weight of oppression bears down on the orchestra as it sounds the opening chords—plodding and constrained, the music is wrenched out as if shackled. Sighing figures in the woodwinds impart a sense of lament. When the main theme begins, it’s tentative at first, just the spark of an idea—the faint suggestion that a better world may be possible. Gradually, it gathers energy and strength, becoming a force to be reckoned with, until, in a burst of joy and triumph, it resolves from the minor key in which it began to the major. Now, the plodding figures from the opening have transformed into stately declarations, and a flurry of strings whip the orchestra into an exhilarating and victorious ending.

The work has become symbolic of populist movements all over the world, even serving as an unofficial anthem of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Valiant brass fanfares proclaim Enlightenment ideals to be victorious above all else. As Patrick Henry put it just 20 years earlier, and half a world away, “Give me liberty or give me death.”

 

Orchestral Suite No. 4, “Mozartiana” (1887)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Run Time: Approx. 26 minutes

 

In his own program note for the premiere of Mozartiana, Tchaikovsky wrote:  “A great many of Mozart’s short pieces are, for some incomprehensible reason, little known — not only to the public but to musicians as well. The author who has arranged this suite, entitled ‘Mozartiana,’ had in mind to provide a new occasion for the more frequent performance of these pearls of musical art, unpretentious in form, but filled with unrivaled beauties.”

The practice of reworking, re-orchestrating, or otherwise tinkering with the works of fellow composers has existed for as long as music has been written. Sometimes, a reworking bears the stamp of someone who clearly thought he could do it better than the original. That is decidedly not the case here. This reimagining of Mozart’s music is carried out with unmistakable love and reverence, as one would only expect for the composer Tchaikovsky referred to as “my god, Mozart.”

Over the course of the set, Tchaikovsky grows increasingly bold with his interpretations, his own voice appearing more and more as the movements progress. The first two movements are based on two short dance forms: the Gigue in G Major, K 574—which Mozart left inscribed in the guest book of an organist he was visiting in Leipzig—and the Minuet in D major, K 355. Both of these works are sweet on the surface, but they are strikingly ahead of their time, full of bold dissonances that Tchaikovsky eagerly highlights in his orchestration. Here, he remains quite faithful to Mozart’s originals, even scoring them in a manner that could pass for a Classical-era orchestration.

The third movement is based on Mozart’s Ave verum corpus, K 618, originally written for string orchestra and chorus. But for his version, Tchaikovsky turned to an organ arrangement by Franz Liszt. Here, Tchaikovsky begins to loosen his restraints a bit, and this is the first movement of the set that sounds more like Tchaikovsky than Mozart—especially with the use of the harp. The music takes on that unmistakable balletic, almost fairytale quality that Tchaikovsky does so well.

The fourth and final movement is based on a Mozart work that is itself already a reworking of another composer: 10 Variations on the Arietta ‘Unser dummer Pöbel meint’ by Christoph Willibald Gluck. Though Tchaikovsky does not add any new variations of his own, he fully transforms Mozart’s music into the world of the late-Romantic Russian orchestra. By this point, we are entirely within Tchaikovsky’s sound world, complete with grand trumpet fanfares, warmly singing violin solos, and densely layered orchestral textures.

As one final note, Tchaikovsky’s orchestration features the clarinet in a prominent soloistic role, which in itself offers a small nod to Mozart, who loved the instrument and played a significant role in securing its permanent place in the orchestra.

 

 

Symphony 3 in F Major, Op. 90 (1883)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Run Time: Approx. 38 minutes

 

Johannes Brahms is a somewhat elusive character in music history. He was intensely private about his inner world, burning many personal correspondences, destroying works with which he was not satisfied, and eradicating all evidence of his compositional process. He never married, but he did have a tight-knit circle of friends with whom he shared his life; what we know of the enigmatic composer comes largely from their memories and from letters that did survive. Besides that, we have his music. So, in cases like the Third Symphony, those of us who analyze music get to engage in a fascinating combination of detective work and armchair psychoanalysis. At times, it can feel a bit overreaching, but in a letter to one such friend, Brahms did say, “I speak through my music.” Very well, I will take that as an invitation.

In the summer of 1883, Brahms took up lodging in Wiesbaden, a picturesque city along the Rhine River—not his usual workplace. The Rhine, whose myth-inspiring drama bisects Western Europe from the Alps to the North Sea, had long served as a muse for German artists, and Brahms, always finding inspiration in nature, was no exception. Earlier that spring, he had turned 50, a milestone to be sure, no matter the era. The work is, in my view, one of deep introspection and nostalgia, sprinkled with references to the most important characters in his life, and anchored upon two main ideas. One is the Rhine, which is depicted throughout the work. The other is the musical cryptogram F–A–F, the three notes upon which the entire work is built, and a nod to two of his dearest friends, violinist Joseph Joachim, and composer Robert Schumann.

Thirty years earlier, the up-and-coming young Brahms was introduced to Robert and Clara Schumann by violin superstar Joseph Joachim. The Schumanns were about as close as one could get to a 19th-century musical power couple, with Clara herself an internationally renowned pianist. They immediately recognized the young man’s talent and took him under their wing, inviting him to stay with them in their home in Düsseldorf—another city on the Rhine.

During this time, Robert Schumann organized a collaborative sonata written jointly by himself, Brahms, and another friend Albert Dietrich. Conceived as a gift for Joachim, the sonata was based on the notes F–A–E after Joachim’s personal credo, “Frei aber einsam” (“Free but lonely”). The young Joachim believed that the artist must eschew all attachments in order to properly fulfill his purpose as an artist.

Brahms, for his part, agreed with this notion of the unfettered artist, but felt that this independence led not to isolation, but to fulfillment. As a response, he took on his own motto, “Frei aber froh” (“Free but happy”), which he outlined with the notes F–A–F, which appears in scattered works throughout his life.

Robert Schumann’s mentorship was very meaningful to Brahms, but unfortunately it was cut short by the former’s fraught mental health. Just two years after they met, Robert attempted suicide by jumping into the Rhine. Although he was rescued by fishermen, he never recovered from his breakdown and voluntarily entered an asylum, where he died in 1856. After Robert’s death, Brahms and Clara remained extremely close, her daughter later recalling that it seemed he was always part of the family. Their letters reveal a deep love for each other, but by all accounts they kept their relationship platonic. Many pages could be written about Brahms and Clara Schumann, but that’s a story for another time.

One last figure whose fingerprints can be found throughout the Third Symphony is Richard Wagner. Wagner and Brahms were not well acquainted, but Brahms’s career was largely defined by him—or perhaps more accurately, against him. Music critics had declared a rift in compositional aesthetics that we now affectionately call the “War of the Romantics,” which pitted the progressive Wagner against Brahms’s more conservative tastes. This wasn’t just a theoretical schism; critics and fans who fell into Wagner’s camp would regularly show up to Brahms’s premiers just to boo. But despite their differences, Brahms had great respect for Wagner’s talent, and even possessed a piece of the original manuscript for his opera, Tannhäuser. Wagner, too, has intrinsic ties to the Rhine, having set his monumental Ring Cycle on its waters. In February 1883, just a few months before Brahms arrived in Wiesbaden, Wagner died.

So, what does any of this have to do with the Third Symphony?

The very opening chords of the symphony present Brahms’s signature F–A–F theme, the striking three-note idiom that stretches dramatically skyward as it reaches from the lower F to the upper octave. This figure serves as the primary theme of the first movement, but it is not confined there. It returns throughout the symphony and reemerges in a particularly powerful way at the close of the final movement. Here, Brahms has slightly altered the notes of his credo to F–A-flat–F, which changes the figure from major into minor, and presents one of the principal conflicts of the work: the dichotomy between major and minor. Throughout the piece, the music slips between the two constantly, never able to stay rooted in one for long. Could this struggle between darkness and light, particularly where it colors this extra-musical theme, reveal complex feelings around his chosen life of freedom?

Coming directly out of the opening F–A–F chords, the strings play a descending passage that bears a striking resemblance to the opening of Robert Schumann’s Third Symphony, known as the Rhenish—Rhenish, of course, referring to the Rhine. Next, as the energy begins to lull, Brahms adds a direct quote from Wagner: the siren song from Tannhäuser. It’s even been suggested that the easy, folk-like clarinet solo that follows these chords sounds an awful lot like Liszt’s song “Die Lorelei”, based on the Heine poem about the famous siren of the Rhine. Beneath it all, a constant motion in the accompanying instruments seems almost irresistibly to suggest the rush of water.

With the inclusion of these references, it’s difficult not to wonder if Brahms might have been reflecting on several touchstones in his life—the friendships of his youth, the loss of his mentor, his inescapable rivalry with Wagner, and perhaps above all, his choice to remain alone—all somehow subtly linked to the majestic river on which he now stayed.

The second movement is more tender, but retains that distinctive flow, reminding us that we haven’t strayed far from the water. Clara Schumann described the movement as “pure idyll; I can see the worshipers kneeling about the little forest shrine, I hear the babbling brook and the buzz of insects.” Indeed, there’s a sense of reverence—almost liturgical—in some of the chords, particularly in the movement’s final moments.

The third movement seizes on the C-major chord that concludes the second movement, only to immediately transform it into C-minor, reinforcing the symphony’s central tension between the two. On the surface, it presents as a somber waltz, but the main melody rises and falls with a sweeping motion that swells and ebbs like waves breaking against the shore, perhaps presenting a glimpse of the darker, more dangerous potential of the Rhine.

The symphony’s conclusion begins where the first movement started: in F-minor, presenting an uncertain, agitated, and rhythmically intense version of the F–A–F theme before shifting back to the major. Much of the movement alternates between these two, but in the end, major triumphs as the final iterations of F–A–F, played first in the solo horn, then the strings, are transposed up to a different part of the scale, allowing the theme to fit into the F-major chord—cleverly done! From there, the work closes in quiet reverence, swelling into a final echo of Schumann’s Rhenish theme, the strings oscillating in gently flowing passages beneath tranquil chords in the winds.

Many analyses of this work get caught up in the F–A–F theme, which is understandable; it’s significant, and musical ciphers are undeniably exciting. But I believe the true heart of this symphony is the Rhine. In my view, this is Brahms’s Rhenish Symphony, but it’s not the idyllic fairytale Rhine of Schumann, nor the Gods and Monsters world of Wagner. This is the Rhine of Brahms’s inner world, the vein connecting the pillars of his life: love, loss, solitude, friendship, and above all, art. Or maybe none of that is true. Maybe it’s just a symphony in F-major. As was Brahms’s way, he’s left it up to us to decide.

 

—Notes by Valerie Sly, 2025