String Quintet No. 1 (Brahms)

History#

Johannes Brahms tried writing in the genre of the string quintet as a young man in the early 1860s, writing a work for string quartet and a second cello, as in Schubert’s String Quintet.

Music#

Brahms structured the quintet in three movements: The first movement is in sonata form. The first subject group is in F major, while the second is in A major, the first of the “pervasive mediant relationships” in this work. The second movement is in double variation form. The first theme is based on a sarabande Brahms wrote in 1854, while the second theme is based on a gavotte that he wrote in the same year. The movement starts in C major, and ends in A major, another mediant relationship. The third movement is a fusion of sonata and contrapuntal forms. The final key of the previous movement, A major, and the key of this movement, F major, represent another mediant relationship. Brahms described the quintet to his friend Clara Schumann as “one of his finest works” and told Simrock, “You have never before had such a beautiful work from me.”

External links#

• Detailed listening guide using the recording by the Amadeus Quartet with Cecil Aronowitz
• Score editions, including an edition for piano four hands, Brahms-Institut