Piano Sonata No. 1 in C Major

Few composers made such waves with their first published works as the 20-year-old Brahms did. When the young composer travelled to Düsseldorf in 1853 and performed his recently completed Piano Sonata No. 1 for Robert Schumann, the older composer was so overwhelmed by the symphonic grandeur, dramatic scale and technical brilliance of the work that he published an article unequivocally proclaiming Brahms as the great hope for the future of German music. Without doubt, Brahms sought to emulate the energy and dynamism of Beethoven in the opening “Allegro”. This connection is immediately made explicit by the first theme, whose rhythmic patterns are cut from the same cloth as the main idea in the first movement of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. In the ensuing “Andante”, Brahms demonstrates his formidable mastery of variation form, transforming a theme derived from an old “Minnelied” (a song of courtly love) in particularly ingenious ways. After the fiery scherzo (“Allegro molto e con fuoco”), which follows without a break from the slow movement, we plunge headlong into a blisteringly exciting finale (“Allegro con fuoco”) that drives the music inexorably toward a jubilant close.