[Footnote 257: For literature on Brahms the following works
are recommended: the comprehensiveLifeby Fuller-Maitland;
the essay in Hadow’sStudies in Modern Music; that in Mason’s
From Grieg to Brahms; that by Spitta inStudies in Musicby
Robin Grey; the first essay inMezzotints in Modern Musicby
Huneker; the biographical and critical article in Grove’s Dictio-
nary; Chapter IX in Volume 8 of theArt of Music, and Chapter
XIII in Volume 2. There are also some stimulating remarks on
Brahms’s style in general, and on the attitude of a past genera-
tion towards his work, in those delightful essays, in 2 volumes,
By the Way, About Musicby the late well-known critic, W.F.
Apthorp.]
As a representative work in each of the four fields in which
Brahms created such masterpieces we have selected, for detailed
analysis, theFirst Symphony, theSonata for Violin and Pi-
anoforte in A major, theBallade in G minorand theSong,
Meine Liebe ist grün wie der Fliederbusch. All four of Brahms’s
symphonies may justly be considered great, each in its own
way. For Brahms is not a man with a single message and has
not written one large symphony in different sections, as, in a
broad sense, may be said of Tchaikowsky. The Second, on ac-
count of the spontaneity and direct appeal of its themes, is un-
doubtedly the most popular. It contains a first movement of a
quasi-Mendelssohnian suavity and lyric charm; a slow movement
which is a meditation of the profundity of Bach himself; a third
movement, allegretto, based on a delightful waltz of the Vien-
nese Ländler type and a Finale of a Mozartian freshness and
vigor—the second theme being specially notable for its broad
sweep. The whole work is a convincing example of Brahms’s
vitality and “joie de vivre.” The Third symphony is a marvel
of conciseness and virile life. The Fourth, though not in all
respects so inspired as the others, is famous for its beautiful
slow movement—with an impressive introduction in the Phry-
gian mode (Brahms often showing a marked fondness for old
modal harmony)—and for the Finale, which is an illustration
of his polyphonic skill in modernizing the variation form, the
Passacaglia or ground bass. But the First,[258] it seems to us,
is the greatest, in scope, in wealth of material, in its remarkable
combination of dramatic, epic and lyric elements and in an in-
tensity of feeling and sublimity of thought peculiar to Brahms.
It is extremely subjective, of deep ethical value, and sets forth
a message of optimism and undying hope. The structural basis