String Quintet in F Major, Opus 88
JOHANNES BRAHMS

Brahms liked to get away from Vienna during the summers, and in 1880 he discovered what would remain his favorite retreat, Bad Ischl, high in the Alps east of Salzburg. Here, beneath snowcapped mountains, he could relax by the dark blue water of the Salzkammergut and enjoy the genial company of many friends from Vienna. He came back to Bad Ischl for the next several years, and in 1882 he wrote two superb chamber works there-the Trio in C Major, Opus 87 and the String Quintet in F Major, Opus 88. The normally self-critical Brahms was so pleased with the quintet that he wrote to his publisher, "You have never had such a beautiful work from me"; in a letter to Clara Schumann he called it "one of my finest works."

This was a very good period for Brahms the composer. At 49, he found himself famous and at the height of his powers-the previous summer had seen the composition of the Second Piano Concerto; the Third Symphony would come from the following year. Though the String Quintet No. 1 is one of Brahms' sunniest chamber works, it is full of complex music beneath that genial surface. The viola quintet (a form much favored by Mozart, who wrote some of his finest works for this combination of instruments) offers a composer a rich sonority and the opportunity to use the additional viola as a thematic instrument rather than relegating it to its more traditional accompanying role. Brahms responds to these opportunities with imaginative compositional choices-this quintet features unusual voicing, structure, and harmonies.

This Quintet was actually composed during the spring of 1882 at Bad Ischl (Brahms went early that year), and many commentators have been unable to resist hearing the sound of spring in the lyric and easy opening measures. The surprises begin immediately: even within the initial statement of this theme, the second violin has climbed above the first (Brahms intermeshes the voices in unusual ways in this quintet). A long transition passage, based on dotted rhythms, leads to the second theme in the first viola; this melody's easy flow on triplets hides the fact that it arrives in a totally unexpected key, A major. The lengthy development of this sonata-form movement then takes place over a sustained deep pedal C from the cello before the vigorous close.

The middle movement brings a number of further surprises. It is a slow movement, but Brahms incorporates two fast episodes that give this movement by turns the character of adagio and then scherzo. The opening, marked Grave ed appassionato, begins with a somber melody that finds the cello, with the lowest register of the five instruments, playing the theme above the other four voices. In a curious touch, Brahms bases this movement on themes he had written for suites of piano music nearly thirty years before. The dark beginning gives way to a dancing Allegretto; a return of the opening material leads to a sparkling Presto, itself a variation of the Allegretto. The concluding moments of this movement, with the first violin arching high above the other voices, bring some of Brahms' most moving and effective music.

The powerful finale, Allegro energico, explodes to life with two sharp chords that introduce a fugue. But this movement is not really a fugue-instead, it is a sonata-form movement that uses fugal material as part of the development. In yet another ingenious touch, Brahms derives all the secondary themes from the fugue subject-it is one more display of composing virtuosity in a piece full of such touches. The Presto coda is itself based on one more derivation of the fugue theme.

A description of the complex technique of the String Quintet in F Major makes the music sound over-intellectualized. It is not. This is one of Brahms' most glowing chamber works, and its fusion of lovely music and ingenious technique is a mark of that composer's music at its finest.