Symphony No. 1 (Brahms)

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The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, by Johannes Brahms was first performed on November 4, 1876 in Karlsruhe. The premiere was given by Felix Otto Dessoff, a conductor and friend of the composer's. It took the composer 14 years to complete, the first sketches dating from 1862.

The work is in the typical four movements

Un poco sostenuto – Allegro – meno Allegro
Andante sostenuto
Un poco Allegretto e grazioso
Adagio – Più Andante – Allegro non troppo ma con brio – Più Allegro

It is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.

A typical performance lasts approximately 45 to 50 minutes.

The long gestation of the symphony may be put down to two factors: on the one hand Brahms' self-critical fastidiousness which led him to destroy many of his early works, and on the other hand the expectation of Brahms' friends and the public that Brahms would continue "Beethoven's inheritance" and produce a symphony of commensurate dignity and intellectual scope - an expectation which Brahms felt he could not fulfill easily in view of the monumental reputation of Beethoven.

The conductor Hans von Bülow was moved in 1877 to call the symphony Beethoven's Tenth, due to perceived similarities between the work and various compositions of Beethoven – it is often pointed out that there is a strong family resemblance between the main theme of the finale of this work and the main theme of the finale of Beethoven's Ninth, the last symphony Beethoven composed, and that Brahms uses the rhythm of the "fate" motto from the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This annoyed Brahms rather: he felt that this amounted to accusations of plagiarism, whereas he saw his use of Beethoven's idiom in this symphony as an act of conscious homage. Brahms himself said, when comment was made on the similarity with Beethoven, "any ass can see that!" Nevertheless, this work is still often referred to as Beethoven's tenth. However, Brahms' horn theme, with the "fate" rhythm, was noted down back in 1868 in a letter to Clara Schumann, overheard in an alphorn's playing ([1]).

Fritz Simrock, Brahms' friend and publisher, did not receive the score until after the work had been performed in three cities (with Brahms still wishing trial performances in at least three more still.)

The manuscript to the first movement apparently does not survive, but the remainder—that to the Andante, Allegretto and Finale—has been reproduced in miniature facsimile by Dover Publications.