The finale of the Second Symphony is – as expected – back in the home key of D and is marked Allegro con spirito (fast and spirited); after the hybrid shapes of the second and third movements, it’s safely back in sonata form. Below are the two main protagonists:
… the movement starts unexpectedly quietly with the melody above in the strings. The first four pitches are important, and you should be aware, too, that the finale starts with the same three notes (bracketed) that opened the symphony; then there are the falling intervals of a fourth (in red) in bar 5…
… marked mezzo piano, largamente (moderately quiet and broadly) arrives in fairly short order and is again in the strings. The notes in red will provide the blazing brass peroration of the work.
Brahms closes the first, exposition, section of the movement with this…
The middle, development, area – as in the opening movement – revolves entirely around the material of the finale’s First Subject: two examples…
… listen to the upside-down version of the theme at 0:19!
… the theme is ‘stretched’ and, at 0:52, goes into slow motion! All of which leads to…
… a fairly standard recap of the opening with the Second Subject reappearing in the home key of D. It’s this Second Subject that – having been ignored in the Development – provides the aforementioned ‘blazing brass peroration’:
Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 73
00:00 Allegro non troppo
14:50 Adagio non troppo
24:34 Allegretto grazioso (quasi andantino)
29:56 Allegro con spirito
The two string concertos:
The works were written nine years apart with the Double Concerto being Brahms’ final orchestral work. Both were written with Brahms’ friend, the violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim, in mind.
Violin concerto in D, Op. 77 (1878)
Allegro non troppo 00:40
Adagio 24:10
Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace 32:16 ∙
Double Concerto in a, Op. 102 (1887)
00:00 Allegro
17:55 Andante
26:08 Vivace non troppo
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Pontarddulais!
The Art of Listening 