Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 (with Score)

Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 (with Score) Composed: 1883 Conductor: Simon Rattle Orchestra: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra 00:00 1. Allegro con brio (F major) 13:54 2. Andante (C major) 23:12 3. Poco allegretto (C minor) 29:58 4. Allegro (F minor - F major) When he began the Third Symphony, he was 50 years old and at the pinnacle of his creative power. The symphony is different from the other three in several significant ways. By far the shortest of the four, it is also the most densely and carefully organized. It is his only “cyclic” symphony, with material from not one, but two previous movements playing a major role in the finale. Brahms identified it as a major-key work, but from the outset, the conflict between major and minor is established as the symphony’s most overriding musical narrative. The pitches that define F major or F minor--A-flat and A-natural--are in constant competition. This is immediately established in the pervasive opening “motto,” which uses not the A-natural of major, but the A-flat of minor. A-natural then attempts to assert itself in the actual main theme. The F-A(-flat)-F of the motto supposedly refers to Brahms’s personal cypher, “Frei aber froh” (“Free but happy”), a play on that of his professional colleague and personal friend Joseph Joachim, which was famously F-A-E, “Frei aber einsam” (“Free but lonely”). Besides the “motto,” the first movement is known for its heroic main theme, causing the symphony to be compared to another “Third” as “Brahms’s ‘Eroica.’” The theme is not entirely original. It quotes almost exactly a rather obscure moment in the first movement of Robert Schumann’s “Rhenish” Symphony and may be a subtle tribute to his long-departed mentor.