A question about Brahms

[André Ribeiro]

Greetings from Denmark!

I have a question, not about Raff I'm afraid, but about Brahms (although Raff has something to do with it). I have recently heard the season symphonies (wonderful) and I'm now wondering whether Brahms also had the seasons in mind when he wrote his four symphonies.

Well...couldn't the last movement of his first symphony for example be the arrival of spring? And could the unusually quiet ending of his third symphony be the end of summer and beginning of autumn?

I don't know....my brother laughed at me when I told him this idea and he knows more about classical music than I do.

What do you think?

I also hear the four seasons in Johan Svendsen's four Norwegian Rhapsodies, but here I am more certain.

[Alan Howe]

Who knows? But Brahms would not have been keen on these extra-musical associations. He would surely have insisted that his symphonies were pure music...

[Marcus]

Hello Andre,
I have read somewhere , a reference to Brahms 2nd as the summer/pastoral symphony, but Brahms regarded his symphonies very seriously, and I doubt if he would have approved. I couldn't associate the 1st with spring - heroic or dramatic might be closer. He took 14 years to write this work, and in the last movement , he is at peace.
But everyone reacts differently to music, and speaking for myself, I often associate music with  landscapes, seascapes etc, and I am sure many people feel the music as I do. That's the magical mystery of music, and what may be a masterpiece for me , could be totally disliked by you.
Marcus