Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major

Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 26, followed hard on the heels of the First Piano Quartet, completed a year later in 1862. Not yet 30, Brahms reacted to the futuristic musical developments of Liszt and Wagner by turning to chamber music and to genres with deep historical roots. The Second Piano Quartet is symphonic in tone and scale, with four large-scale movements; perhaps partly because of its sheer length it is one of the most neglected of Brahms’ major works. The themes are spacious, ripe for development over a broad canvas, and the work’s lyrical poise and melodic richness are among its vital strengths. The first movement is serenely expansive and, despite its scale, beautifully proportioned. The second movement, “Poco Adagio”, is one of Brahms’ finest slow movements. The strings are muted until the return of the opening section, giving the music a veiled colour as the strings shadow the piano part, with hints of the slow movement of the Second Piano Concerto, composed 20 years later. The understated “Scherzo” increases in rhythmic interest as it unfolds and frames a more animated central trio section. The “Finale”, another full-scale sonata-form movement rather than a conventional rondo, begins and ends in exuberant and even rough humour, recalling the “Rondo alla Zingarese” of Brahms’ previous Piano Quartet. Yet its Schubert-style expansiveness brings the work to a deeply satisfying and masterly conclusion.