Piano Quartet No. 3 (Brahms) - Fourth Movement

Fourth Movement

The finale is a sonata-allegro in C minor in cut-time with a secondary subject in E♭ major. The tempo is Allegro comodo and the exposition is repeated. The piano accompaniment for the first theme, stated immediately in measure 1, is taken from the opening piano line of Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio in C minor, Op. 66, movement 1. Mendelssohn's Piano Trio also features a quotation of a chorale melody taken from the sixteenth-century Genevan psalter 'Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit' (“Before Your Throne I Now Appear”). Vincent CK Cheung has also observed that the opening G-E♭ motion in the violin, coupled with the G-G-G-C in the piano greatly points toward the “Fate theme” in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Brahms’s piece thus operates on multiple levels of reference (both literary and musical) and quotation.

The movement begins with the violin playing a theme above piano accompaniment. Both lines are separate themes that are developed individually throughout the movement, but they are similar in one major respect: both are constructed of three ascending notes preceded by a pickup, which go to a neighbor tone of the highest note and move back to that note. The essential notes of the violin theme are B-C-D-E♭-F-E♭, and the essential notes of the piano theme are: G-C-E♭-G-F♯-G (the rest of the piano theme is a descending sequence of ascending seconds: G-A♭-F-G-E♭-F-D-E♭). Therefore, the violin line uses an upper neighbor tone while the piano line uses a lower neighbor tone. This is crucial for understanding Brahms’s development of the thematic ideas of this movement.

The violin melody is halting and primarily diatonic, played over an energetic piano accompaniment. It moves from C minor to G minor, although it ends with a change of mode to G major. After this, the violin plays a descending stepwise melody, which under close inspection is revealed to be an inversion of its own original theme (from B-C-D-E♭-F-E♭ to G-F-E♭-D-C-B) in successive quarter notes. The viola and cello soon accompany this figure. This builds up until measure 39, where a thunderous theme erupts in all instruments. This moves quickly to an idea constructed in triplets. Tonally, this passage is in C minor, and the final progression ends with an alternation between B-diminished and A♭ major. The piano plays a broken A♭ major chord, followed by a broken A♭ minor chord that is used to make a transition to E♭ major.

The section in the relative major begins with a theme clearly composed from the theme of the piano’s accompaniment, in this case stated by the violin and viola moving in unison over a piano accompaniment based on the previous broken chordal figure. This briefly exchanges with a cello countermelody. When the violin and viola soar to an unexpectedly high register, the piano interrupts by playing an explosive broken dominant seventh chord. The strings respond by a piano, homophonic, homorythmic theme to be played mezza voce (It: medium voice). This idea is taken directly from the opening string theme of the first movement. Rather than accompanying this theme, the piano plays a descending broken chord after each utterance. The exposition ends in E-flat major, and Brahms indicates that it should be repeated.

The development begins with an exploration of the descending third that begins the violin’s opening theme; when sequenced, this produces a series of descending thirds that recalls the opening theme of the third movement (G♯-E-C-A). The piano accompanies this with its initial theme. Brahms quickly eliminates accidentals from the key signature as the piece progresses to D major and A minor. Interspersed are descending chromatic phrases played by the piano. In measures 117-118, the cello introduces a new four-note idea (E-F-D-E) played pizzicato underneath the piano. This idea is taken from the second half of the first piano theme (G-A♭-F-G). The viola plays the opening of the piano’s first theme, which resembles an inversion of the sequenced thirds developed moments earlier. Brahms repeats this pattern almost exactly, moving from A minor to E minor to B minor. In B minor, the piano develops its initial theme to a greater extent. This part of the development section is concluded by syncopated phrases by the viola and piano, which echo the second half of the piano’s first theme in B minor.

Karl Geiringer has shown that the next section (mm. 155-188) is an insertion "in order to mitigate the excessive conciseness of this movement." Later insertions were atypical of Brahms because of his "striving after compression," and it seems that he "for once overshot the mark." The later addition explains the motion away from B minor, only to return to the key some thirty measures later. This section continues with the homorhythmic theme in G major, then in E♭ major. What follows is a quick (Tempo I) development of the initial piano theme in C minor, with all strings playing the opening four notes (moving in the often used progression i – I – iv). This exact sequence is used again in the coda to turn the movement from the minor mode to major. A dominant seventh chord in C minor is used as a pivot chord to return to B minor (a similar progression is used in Brahms’s Ballade, Op. 118, No. 3, in which a dominant seventh chord built on G moves abruptly to B major). The violin develops its initial theme in B minor and then D minor with all three string instruments. The final notes of the theme (F-E♭) are sequenced and inverted repeatedly, recalling the significance of descending seconds in the first movement of this quartet. This moves from D minor to G minor to C minor. The end of the development section sees a very high and prolonged A♭, which parallels the end of the development section of the first movement.

The recapitulation, which reinstates the key signature of C minor, begins with the initial violin theme stated forte by all strings, accompanied by the piano playing broken octaves in triplets, outlining the main notes of its theme. After the first statement, the piano resumes its original accompaniment and the strings are reduced to a piano dynamic. This proceeds similarly to the exposition, albeit with the themes developed more extensively. Notably, the music turns toward G minor more strongly and the key signature changes to C major, as the relative major section from the exposition is in the tonic major in the recapitulation. The rest of the recapitulation is nearly identical to the exposition, ending in C major.

The coda begins at measure 311, with the piano loudly declaring the homorhythmic theme, alternating with the strings. The violin theme is then played by the strings in C major, but it soon shifts back to C minor (the key signature too returns). The four-note idea from the development section comes back, this time with its first note removed. The chromatic descending scale in the piano, an abbreviation of the violin theme in the viola, the four-note theme, and the chord progression (i – I – iv) indicate that the coda draws more from the development section than from the exposition or recapitulation. The music quietly subsides into a tranquillo section in which the inversion of the violin theme (first stated in measures 21-22 from the exposition) is sequenced across the strings while the piano continues to develop its initial theme. The violin and cello eventually sustain the tonic C for a great amount of time while the piano and viola begin to lean toward the tonic major in a continuing I – iv progression. All instruments continue to die down as the piano plays one last descending chromatic scale, the violin and viola combine the piano’s initial theme with the quarter note rhythm of the violin theme, and the cello sustains a low C. As the piano and strings reach their final notes, a C major chord stated pianissimo is held briefly, shining out of the mist. Two sudden forte C major chords complete this quartet.