Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25 (orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg)

Program notes

About the Work

Schoenberg explained his reasons for orchestrating the quartet in characteristically blunt terms: “1. I like the piece. 2. It is seldom played. 3. It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything, and this I achieved.”

The result is a lavish orchestration calling for a full late-Romantic orchestra including xylophone, glockenspiel and a battery of other percussion, colors Brahms himself never used. The arrangement has often been nicknamed “Brahms’s Fifth Symphony.” Klemperer conducted the first performance in Los Angeles in May 1938.

George Balanchine later choreographed a ballet to this version, the Brahms–Schoenberg Quartet. The orchestration brings out colors and voices that can easily be lost in the quartet texture: Schoenberg finally heard everything he had always wanted to hear.

Tonight’s performance places Brahms alongside Liszt, two composers who represented opposing factions in the aesthetic wars of the nineteenth century.

What to listen for tonight:

• First movement (Allegro): The passionate opening theme announces Brahms’s Romantic intensity from the first bar. Listen for the interplay between agitated, driven passages and moments of lyrical tenderness; the tension between these moods defines the movement.

• Second movement (Intermezzo: Allegro ma non troppo): Not the expected slow movement but a haunting, veiled Intermezzo in C minor. The central trio section brings brief warmth before the mysterious opening music returns.

• Third movement (Andante con moto): The true slow movement, noble and singing. Schoenberg’s orchestration reveals inner voices and harmonic shadings that can be obscured in the original chamber texture.

• Fourth movement (Rondo alla zingarese: Presto): The famous “Gypsy Rondo” finale, reflecting Brahms’s lifelong fascination with Hungarian folk music. This rousing, high-spirited music builds to an exhilarating conclusion, the moment where Schoenberg’s orchestration truly sounds like a Brahms Fifth Symphony. Listen for the fiery gypsy-style fiddling and the wild abandon of the coda.