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GARY HOFFMAN 21
Brahms derived the theme of this first movement, steeped in archaisms, from
Contrapunctus III of
The Art of Fugue
. He returns to Bach in the finale, where the
memory of Contrapunctus XIII is recalled, and indeed a certain fugal character
is apparent throughout the work. But for the colours, the harmonic complexity,
the discourse in which the registers alternate between one instrument and the
other, always letting one clearly dominate the other, how can one not notice the
influence of the String Sextet no.2 in G major, on which Brahms was also working?
Both works, decidedly non-identical twins, were completed in 1865. The second
movement, marked Allegretto, is a minuet, light, airy, as if swept away by a tender
passepied, with aWatteauesque touch to it, and a Trio whose ländler is constantly
interrupted, another nod to the Baroque music that was to be a consistent source
of Brahmsian inspiration. The finale, for its part, declaims a formidable fugue that
leads inexorably to a dazzling coda, exhausting the string player’s bowing arm.
Brahms had written the work for Josef Gänsbacher, a singing teacher and spare-
time cellist, but had warned him: his new opus had no intention of reducing the
piano to accompanying status, but aimed to give it a role as decisive as Beethoven
had done in his sonatas. At the first performance, Gänsbacher asked Brahms to
play less loudly, since (even though they were in the intimate surroundings of a
salon) the cellist was unable to hear himself; Brahms merely retorted, ‘Lucky man!’
The score was initially offered to Breitkopf & Härtel, but was returned to sender;
however, Simrock published it without hesitation in 1866.