From Earth to Heaven: Brahms and Scriabin

About the Work

The Violin Concerto, composed in the summer of 1878, was Brahms’s only work for solo violin and orchestra, and it ranks among the supreme achievements of the concerto literature. It was written for Joseph Joachim, his oldest musical friend. The two had known each other for a quarter century by then, and their artistic partnership was one of the most fruitful in musical history.

Brahms wrote it at Pörtschach in Carinthia and sent the solo part to Joachim, asking him, with characteristic understatement, simply to “say a word or write a few words about the part.” What followed was an intensive collaboration by correspondence: Joachim suggested revisions to make passages more idiomatic for the violin, and Brahms weighed them, taking some and setting others aside.

Originally, Brahms planned four movements, but he eventually settled on the traditional three, discarding two middle movements. (The ideas from one of them reportedly resurfaced in his Second Piano Concerto.) The premiere took place on New Year’s Day 1879 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, with Joachim as soloist and Brahms conducting.

The concerto’s early reception was troubled. A quip attributed both to the conductor Hans von Bülow and to the violinist Joseph Hellmesberger called it a concerto not for but against the violin. The virtuoso Henryk Wieniawski called it unplayable, and Pablo de Sarasate refused to perform it, protesting that he would not “stand on the rostrum and listen to the oboe playing the only tune in the Adagio.” Yet the work has long since taken its place alongside the Beethoven and Mendelssohn concertos as one of the supreme tests and glories of the violinist’s art.

I. Allegro non troppo: A spacious orchestral introduction presents the main themes before the violin enters with a broad, singing melody. The movement unfolds with symphonic grandeur, the solo part woven into the orchestral fabric rather than set against it. The first-movement cadenza is traditionally Joachim’s, though many violinists have composed their own.

II. Adagio: An oboe intones one of Brahms’s most beautiful melodies, the tune Sarasate refused to sit through. The violin takes up the theme with exquisite tenderness, and the movement unfolds as a reverie of autumnal warmth.

III. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace: A Hungarian-flavored finale, widely heard as a tribute to the Hungarian-born Joachim. Its vigorous rhythms and folk-like themes bring the concerto to a brilliant close.

Listen for: The grandeur of the orchestral introduction, establishing the concerto’s symphonic character from the start. In the slow movement, the famous oboe melody that so irritated Sarasate, though the violin’s elaboration of it is equally beautiful. The finale’s Hungarian spirit reflects Brahms’s lifelong love of Hungarian popular music and his friendship with Joachim.

About the Work

The Third Symphony, composed between 1902 and 1904, marks a turning point for Scriabin. It is the first major work in which he explicitly incorporated his philosophical and mystical ideas, and those ideas would dominate the rest of his creative life.

The symphony’s programme describes the ascent of the human spirit from darkness to enlightenment. In less abstract terms, the work traces the soul’s journey from struggle and bondage through sensual pleasure to spiritual liberation.

For Scriabin, music now represented a reaching toward experiences beyond the ordinary, and the abstract symphony became a “poem.”

The premiere took place in Paris on May 29, 1905, conducted by the legendary Arthur Nikisch at the Théâtre du Châtelet. Over time, “The Divine Poem” has taken its place as one of Scriabin’s major achievements, a bridge between late Romanticism and the radical experiments that would follow.

The symphony is cast in three continuous movements, played without pause:

Introduction and “Luttes” (Struggles): A slow introduction presents the work’s motto themes: a portentous phrase in the bass followed by a rising trumpet figure. These motifs will return throughout the symphony in various guises. The main body of the movement depicts the conflict between humanity and the divine, between bondage and freedom.

“Voluptés” (Sensual Delights): A languid, perfumed movement that explores the seductions of earthly pleasure. The orchestration is rich and sensuous, the harmonies luxuriant.

“Jeu divin” (Divine Play): The spirit, having passed through struggle and temptation, attains freedom. The movement begins playfully, even skittishly, but builds to a blazing affirmation: the triumph of the liberated soul.

Listen for: The motto themes in the introduction, which bind the entire symphony together. The contrast between the turbulent “Struggles” and the languorous “Sensual Delights.” In the finale, notice how the music grows increasingly ecstatic, building to a peroration of almost unbearable intensity. The symphony’s concluding pages are among the most overwhelming in all of late-Romantic music.