Brahms: Quintet in F minor, Op. 34(c)
In September of 1862, Clara Schumann wrote to her great friend Johannes Brahms:
I don't even know how to begin to tell you in measured words what delight your quintet brings me. I've played it many times, it utterly fills my heart. Indeed each time it is more beautiful, more magnificent! What inner power, what richness in the first movement, how completely one is seized by the very first idea! How beautiful for the instruments, I can see them there bowing away... And what an Adagio, singing and ringing blissfully to the last note! I start it over and over and can't stop!
You may well be wondering, have I ever heard this remarkable piece, over which Clara was so clearly beside herself? Chances are, yes and no.
No, because the score that Clara read at her piano was played only a handful of times privately in the 1860's, and then never seen again, presumably destroyed by the composer.
Fortunately though, yes, because before meeting the shredder the work underwent a series of transformations and eventually became one of the most beloved works of the chamber music repertoire, the F minor Piano Quintet.
On the one hand, it's hard to argue with success, and the ultimate version of the piece is unquestionably so great (and Clara was the first to say so as soon as she heard it) that perhaps one oughtn't look a gift quintet in the mouth. On the other hand, in learning about the strange and circuitous evolution of this spectacular work, and beginning to consider the music itself in light of it, I for one couldn't help being a bit curious about this original, lost incarnation, and what it might have sounded like.
The instruments that Clara Schumann could picture 'bowing away' ['ordentlich Streichen'] were in fact five strings, for the original version of the piece was a string quintet - of the Schubert variety, for two violins, viola, and two cellos.
[to be continued...]