Brahms completed his Violin Sonata in d minor op. 108 in 1888. It was the culmination of several years of work, and his final contribution to the genre. This Third Sonata is his only one in a minor key, and stands in stark contrast to its two predecessors, the cheerful and lyrical Sonatas in G major and A major. Cast on a large scale, its four movements are full of tense drama, technically and musically demanding in equal measure and crowned by a brilliant finale that Brahms’s contemporaries admired for its “tempestuous” character. Reason enough for G. Henle Verlag to offer this sonata in a separate edition.
The musical text of this revised Urtext edition is based on the recently-published volume within the New Brahms Complete Edition, which guarantees the highest degree of scholarly precision. The helpful, well-thought-out fingerings are provided by the established chamber duo Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Helmchen.
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Preface
During his summer holiday in Thun in 1886, seven years after the publication of the Violin Sonata no. 1 op. 78, Johannes Brahms (1833 – 97) turned his attention to two new works in this genre. His pocket diary for the month of August contains the entry “Violin sonatas d minor, A major” (Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, shelfmark Ia 79559), which is the earliest reference to the … more
Critical Commentary
About the composer
Johannes Brahms
His significant output comprises chamber music, piano works, numerous choral compositions and songs (including settings of folk-song lyrics), as well as large-scale orchestral works in the 1870s and 1880s. His compositions are characterized by the process of developing variation. He is considered an antithesis to the New German School around Liszt, and an advocate of “absolute” music.
| 1833 | Born in Hamburg on May 7, the son of a musician. His first piano instruction with Willibald Cossel at age seven, then with Eduard Marxen; first public performances from 1843. |
| 1853 | Concert tour through German cities; he meets Schumann, who announces him as the next great composer in his essay “Neue Bahnen” (“New Paths”). A lifelong, intimate friendship develops with Clara Schumann. |
| 1854–57 | Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15. |
| 1857–59 | Choir director, pianist, and teacher at the royal court in Detmold. |
| 1859–61 | Director of the Hamburg Women’s Choir. |
| 1860 | Manifesto against the New Germans around Liszt. |
| 1863 | Cantata “Rinaldo,” Op. 50. |
| 1863–64 | Director of the Wiener Singakademie. |
| 1868 | Partial performance in Vienna of “A German Requiem,” Op. 45 (the complete work premiered in Leipzig in 1869) |
| 1871–74 | Artistic director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of Friends of Music) in Vienna. |
| 1873 | Haydn Variations, Op. 56a, for orchestra. |
| from 1877 | His symphonic output begins with the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 (begun 1862); composition of the Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73; the Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 (1883); and Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 (1884–85): cantabile themes, chamber-music-like style. |
| from 1878 | Travels in Italy. |
| 1878 | Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77, for Joseph Joachim. |
| 1881 | Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83, with a scherzo movement. |
| 1886 | Honorary president of Vienna’s Tonkünstlerverein (Association of Musicians). |
| 1897 | Four Serious Songs, Op. 121. Dies in Vienna on April 3. |
