Johannes Brahms

String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 18

Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg in 1833 and died in Vienna in 1897. He began composing this work in Detmold in 1857 and completed it in Hamburg in 1860. The Sextet was first performed in Hanover in 1860 by the (augmented) Joachim Quartet. The score calls for 2 violins, 2 violas, and 2 cellos.

*****

After the anguish and despair of living through the death of his mentor and champion, Robert Schumann, Brahms obtained a part-year position at the court of Detmold. His duties were light: giving piano lessons to the Princess Friederike, conducting the choral society, and performing as pianist at the court’s concerts. This left him plenty of time to compose and more time still to walk in solitude in the Teutoburger Forest. And his three months of work at Detmold paid him more than other full-time positions he had been offered.

It was like a tonic for Brahms. Leaving Hamburg for Detmold meant leaving behind, if only for a time, a city largely inhospitable to his music, most of his friends, the memories of Schumann, and the feelings he had for Schumann’s wife Clara. He felt safe to be cheerful again, and restored to an even keel. He wrote to Clara, “The ideal genuine man is calm in joy and calm in pain and sorrow.”

One of the works Brahms composed at Detmold was his String Sextet in B-flat major. The choice of a sextet was unusual; it had been done, but not often and by no one of his stature. The sextet offers certain advantages to the composer: a richer, deeper sound is available (compared with a string quartet), and at least one of the cellos is freed from bass-line duties often enough to sing right along with the violins and violas.

Brahms takes advantage right away: the opening theme of the first movement of the Sextet is given by a cello. There follow two more themes, a development and a recapitulation, all redolent of Brahms’ calmness in joy.

The second movement is a theme-and-variations based on the opening melody, a vaguely Hungarian-sounding tune given by the viola. The variations ensue with a calculated increase in tension, as the faster note values give the impression of speeding up. But then along comes the fourth variation, a hymn in the major mode—a nearly startling change of pace. After more variations (including an imitation of a music box) the movement closes quietly with solo cello.

Brahms begins the scherzo with a straight face, but before long he begins to throw displaced accents about with considerable abandon. The quicker trio comes before the scherzo is repeated with its now-familiar good cheer.

The Finale is a conflation of sonata and rondo forms; it is both delicate and urgent, suave and rustic. This charming and graceful music is topped off with a rousing coda.

Many hear the influence of the past masters in this Sextet, and indeed it’s not hard to hear a bit of Schubert in the first movement, Beethoven in the scherzo, and Haydn in the Finale. But the best part of this work is hearing the cheerful Brahms throughout.

—Mark Rohr