The works written for the piano and three string instruments – violin, viola and cello, occupies a significant place in the chamber music of the period between 1750 and 1920, that we could call, without any augmentation, “The Golden Age” of classical chamber writing. Mozart left us two brilliant patterns of piano quartet, young Beethoven wrote four works for such instrumental combination. The epoch of Romanticism brought the masterpieces by Schumann and Brahms, young Gustav Mahler, Saint-Saens and Fauret; among Russian composers, who turned to this genre, we see Rubinstein, Ippolitov-Ivanov and Taneev. The classical piano quartets are not very numerous (in comparison to their “neighbours” – the string quartets, the piano trios and even quintets), but the best of them are performed not less, or even more often, than other chamber works by the same author.

This correlation can be also referred to the three piano quartets by Johannes Brahms. He composed as many of them as the string quartets, sonatas for piano solo, for violin and piano, and piano trios (all by three). Only this single fact shows how important for him was this instrumental combination (for example, Schumann, who had a great influence to young Brahms and formed his priorities in the (scale) of genres, - not even chamber, - wrote only one piano quartet, but three piano trios, three string quartets and the same number of violin sonatas; and Brahms decided, so to say, to correct this disproportion in his own work). Brahms’ masterworks became a culminating point in the history of this genre in XIX century.

The first two piano quartets, Op. 25 and 26, open an enormously successful series of chamber instrumental works of the composer, who had reached the time of his creative maturity. They produce the real storm in the professional and amateurs circles (H. Reimann). It happened in 1863, when Brahms was at the age of thirty, soon after they had been printed, - but the first sketches of the both quartets (as well as of the third one, edited only in 1873) belong to mid-1850’s, when Brahms was a young man, and the mood, dominating this music, is connected with his youth impressions, when the awe and humor, nonchalance and despair are equally represented and absorbed by the burning, outburst temperament of the young genius. The scrupulous work with the material, brilliant feeling of the form, phrasing and instrumental balance show, that it’s no music by a beginner, but an outstanding master.

First Piano Quartet in G minor opens with an elegiac piano unisons quarters (the first subject), but soon the primal image disappears in the stream of the shortest durations, while the tempo arises to Animato (second subject in D major, close to Schumann’s melodic patterns). The jubilant and even ecstasy-like concluding subject (which, being transposed in the main G minor tonality in recapitulation, obtains some quasi-Mahlerian, pitiful and abstract character), crowns the exposition. The short dramatic development of two sections finds its continuation in the Coda, after the recapitulation part; only now - in the very last bars of movement - the initial elegiac mood reappears again. The second movement is a brilliant scherzo, titled by the author as “Intermezzo”. The rich palette of wide-breathing melodies, replacing each other like the pictorial images of one’s light dream, the rhythmic base of this music, volatile in character, and instable in phrasing - but of constant and sharply felt meter of 9/8 make this movement one of the most charming examples among Romantic scherzos. Andante, on the contrary, has some earthly quality with its regular point d’orgue (the technique, Brahms often uses in harmony).

The characters of solemn (or sometimes lyrical) choral singing, the heroic procession, which seems to begin in the middle section from afar and reaches its full dynamic force in the recapitulation, is perfectly developed in the instrumental texture, full of new inventions and decorative effects. The final movement, written in a rondo form, is built on the themes of Hungarian origin and their stylizations. One of the original themes, the triumphant, rhapsody-like second subject was used by Brahms in his “Hungarian dances”; the main theme (the first subject) with its three-bar rhythmic building resembles us a wild and unruly springing-accentuated dance of Hungarian Gypsies (so-called Verbunkos style). Here Brahms prefers rather to expose new themes than to develop them, which makes this movement sort of picturesque and not dramatic. We find here the purely Romantic conception of the cycle, when all tragic collisions, dreams and passions of the previous movements find their last solution, penetrating into the inner (equaled here to the outer one) world of peasants, or Gypsies - or others, “non-civilized” persons, the real sons and daughters of the Nature.

Second Piano Quartet in А major in all its main features differs from the first one. Here we won’t find the sharp contrasts between the movements, single themes and images; the characters, contained in this masterwork, make a wondering unity. At the same time, the Second quartet impresses the listener not so immediately. It was written in 1861. The Quartet seems to be influenced in many respects by the works of Viennese Classics. Even the outline of the chord rows and airy mood of the very first phrase is very similar to the opening movements of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, one of Brahms's favorite works. The mere key A major substantially defines the mood that will prevail: it is the key of the future Violin Sonata No. 2, op.100 and Intermezzo from op.118. One can hear an echo of the style, which is similar to Schubert's Sonata op.120. The quartet is classicized; it is animated with fine lyricism, but also reveals an innermost nerve, undisclosed sombre depths of Brahms's music, «Innere Stimme» of German Romantics.

Blithe and joyful attitude to life of the first theme is captivating, and the second one, similar by its character, is charming and graceful. The second movement is filled with evident pantheistical motives. When we hear its lyrical theme, - a melody based on slightly swinging bass tones, - we are immersed in silence and contemplation, later broken by romantic peals of diminished chords. The third movement seems to be Schubert-like and naïve in most interpretations, the colors of its palette are similar to a pastoral. As for the fourth movement, it is a spirit of dance that fascinates the audience.

The first sketches of the Third Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60, belong to 1865. But the plans of it appeared much earlier – simultaneously with the first two ones, i.e. in the middle of 1850s. It was completed only in 1874.

A slow and concentrated introduction of the first movement seems to explode in the flaming and pathetic Allegro. Scherzo has even more strain and images of a severe fight. It is similar to the scherzo of the Piano Quintet, Op. 34, but this music is firmer, even more aggressive, than that of the mentioned above. The third movement of the Quartet – Andante – is one of the best lyrical pages, ever written by Brahms. It starts with a remarkably expressive solo of a cello (allusion to the Piano Quartet by Schumann, an old friend and Brahms-the-artist’s godfather). This movement is an inspired romance with a dreamy melody, which passes from cello to violin. The finale of the Quartet – Allegro commodo – captivates us again, after a short interval, with its passionate and powerful development. The optimistic, major code of the finale resolves tragic atmosphere, dominating in the music of the Quartet.

The stylistics of the Third Quartet, which sounds philosophically-profound, inspired and pathetic and containing the images of passion, struggle, firmness and fall, makes it similar to the First Symphony in C minor. As in the case with the “pair” – The Second string Quartet/The Fourth Symphony, the same key does not play here such an important role, as the similarity of the images and means, used to create them – harmonic patterns and outlines of melodies, texture devices etc. At the same time, this new, tragic and deep style, Brahms exploits here, underlines a distance between the Third Piano Quartet and the first two ones. The youthful ardor of the G minor Quartet, as well as the serene idyll of the A major one, gives place here to the tragic depth and wisdom. In a letter to his editor Simrock, Brahms wrote before publishing his new composition: “Besides, could you please place a picture in the title of it. It must be a head and a pistol next to it. So you can imagine this music! I could even send you my photo for this purpose! You can, if, to your opinion, it will look better, to make tail-coat blue, trousers – yellow and dress feet into the jackboots”.

It is a transparent allusion to the costume of “Young Werther”, in which he was buried. This quotation of the 1874 letter often gives cause to interpret this composition as the echo of the life troubles, Brahms was going through while he was working on the quartet – up to the suicide thoughts.

Certainly, this point of view has some true in it, but still we should not understand it literally. Let us remember, for example, a quotation from Shostakovich’s letter to Isaac Glickman about the Eighth Quartet - a tragic author’s confession (by the way, it is also written in C minor key), which also sounds very ironical: “The pseudo tragedy is such that while composing it my tears flowed as abundantly as urine after half dozen beers”. Still with some accuracy we could add that substantial aspects of the Grandiose First Symphony are presented in the Quartet, Op. 60, in some subjective way (which is always typical for chamber genres).

Fedor Sofronov