Johannes Brahms

Until 1865, a significant percentage of Brahms' published work was for piano solo. After this time, he concentrated on vocal music, not publishing a major work for piano until the Eight Piano Pieces, Op. 76, of 1878, followed immediately by the Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79, of 1879. Brahms would take another break from the piano until the early 1890s, when he released Opp. 116 through 119. Thus, works for piano open and close his compositional career. Unity seems not to have been an issue with Brahms in the late sets of piano pieces, except in the case of the Fantasias, Op. 116. Although the late piano works are brief, they are among the most complex, dense, and reflective works ever composed for the instrument. Most likely composed in the summer of 1893, the Klavierstücke (Piano Pieces), Op. 119, were published in Berlin by Simrock in 1893. They were first performed in London in January 1894.

Brahms was uncomfortable with descriptive titles for his pieces, and often resorted to the noncommittal "Klavierstücke." Occasionally unsure as to what title, if any, he should give an individual piece, Brahms came to use the term "intermezzo" as a rubric under which he could file anything that was not especially whimsical or fiery. Thus, the three Intermezzi of Op. 119 are not all constructed alike. The Op. 119 pieces do not require the technical facility necessary to play many of his earlier works, but an incisive musicality is paramount for a proper performance of these musical miniatures.

Brahms disguises the bar line in a masterful fashion at the beginning of the first piece, an Intermezzo in B minor. Described by Walter Frisch as a B minor triad that is "embedded in a chord that looks, but cannot be said to function, like a E minor ninth," the first three notes (a B minor triad) really function as an upbeat to what follows. Thus, the second half of each measure belongs, harmonically, with the first half of the next. Such an analysis reveals a circle of fifths progression into the fourth measure, at which point the real bar line becomes meaningful. After the central section, which is less linear than the opening material, the beginning of the piece returns, but with touches of the tonic major. The strongest cadence, on B minor, occurs at the end of what is the most harmonically rich, yet harmonically ambivalent, of Brahms's works.

Agitated repeated notes characterize the E minor Intermezzo, whose first section consists of varied presentations of the opening theme. The waltz-like central section, itself in two parts, uses the same melody as the opening measures, disguised by the different tempo, rhythm, and accompaniment. The reprise of the first section skips little material, and the piece ends with a reminiscence of the waltz.

The Intermezzo in C major is a frivolous, humorous romp with the melody in the thumb of right hand, accompanied both above and below. The piece has the feel, though not the form, of a scherzo; its middle segment is set off more by harmony than by new melodic material.

The fourth and final piece of the set, a Rhapsody in E flat major, is the longest of Brahms's late piano works. A passage built of triplets sets off the harsh opening from the more lyrical central episode, which features a stepwise melody over broken chords. A varied form of the main theme appears before the literal reprise. The Rhapsody's firm close on E flat minor is very unusual, and looks back to the second of Schubert's Four Impromptus, D. 899.