Brahms String Quintet No. 2, Op. 111

[allegroamabile]

I feel this string quintet does not get any attention at all. I also believe this is the most gorgeous piece ever written. If any of you are familiar with this work, please comment on what you like or dislike about this piece and/or discuss which parts move you the most.

[geogibson]

Happy to reply: I first heard this work about fifty years ago-- through a recording made at the Casals Festival in the early 1950's. It was a 'mono' recording with a all-star ensemble, including, I believe, Casals on cello, and Isaac Stern as one of the violins. Of course, that First Movement is everflowing forward, assertive and abundant... even at first hearing and I was won over to it, for that Opening, which to my mind has an affinity with the Opening of the Third Symphony. Power presented in a Form, if you like. The players love it, I'm sure... right on to the Quintet's rollicking Finale, which recalls a bit of the play Brahms can engage in, as in the happy Finale to the last String Quartet. Johannes was a good craftsman and he had a sense of humor!

[vinteuil]

A few kids who heard the opening of the first movement playing on my iPod Touch's speakers refused to believe that the music was "classical." I think they actually "converted" because of that one experience.
This piece is probably Brahms' best work. An incredible achievement in any form.

[allegroamabile]

I agree with you again, perlnerd666. It's my personal favorite. What do you mean by kids not believing it was classical?

I never thought of the beginning like the opening of Brahms's Third Symphony, but it does have a similar connection.

thanks

[vinteuil]

They basically liked it too much for it to fit with their conceptions of classical music.

[sugiura]

I feel this string quintet does not get any attention at all. I also believe this is the most gorgeous piece ever written. If any of you are familiar with this work, please comment on what you like or dislike about this piece and/or discuss which parts move you the most.

Agree. The leaping theme at the start is like the seond subj of the first sextet, start of the 2nd cello sonata.
Problem of the 1st movt opening is- as often voiced in the lit- that the balance is questionable at the beginning (one against 4). Maybe someone could rescore it for string orch or full orch- as long as it doesn't come out like Schonberg's arrangement of the op 25 piano quartet!

[allegroamabile]

Let's just say there is a reason why Brahms intialy choose this to be his last piece. He even remarked that this piece was his swansong. Of course that all changed when he feel in love with the clarinet.

I even have read that the beginning theme was first used in his sketches for a Fifth Symphony. When he decided that he wanted to use it in his last string quintet, he destroyed the manuscripts of the alleged symphony in a river. I also have read that the opening phrase played by the cello in his Clarinet Trio, Op. 114 was the theme that he was going to use in his Fifth Symphony, but I think that the first source I stated is correct.

[ch513la]

Towards the end of his compositional life Brahms developed a simple and childlike voice which is wonderfully expressed in the Op 111 (and also in the Op 112 pieces for mixed choir - which was, in fact, to be the 'last' piece until the clarinet ensemble pieces,the piano pieces, the last songs and the organ preludes came along). In some ways the little C major Intermezzo for piano Op. 119 No. 3 is an even more astonishing accomplishment. It has the feel of one of the Schumann Kinderszenen written by a very tired and ill man whose external successes were never able to overcome his personal isolation. Einsam aber frei.

Compare the opening of this to one of the great openings of his earlier music such as the Op. 8 trio or the Op 18 sextet ... the opening of the Op 111 has the same energy but it is no longer expressive of 'sehnsucht,' a reaching for something beyond. It is happy 'in its own skin.' Cellists had to wait for the 1st Carter String Quartet for another opening like this!

Of course the balance problems in performance are terrible!

[allegroamabile]

I was just thinking that the beginning of the last movement in the String Quintet in G sounds a great deal like the beginning of the last movement of his Symphony No. 3. There seems to be a descent amount of similarities between these two pieces.