'How does the thematic content of Brahms Op.38 (first movement) relate to its overall structure?

Why does
this matter?’

After an eight-year period of compositional hiatus save for the piano ballades and the Variations on a Theme of
Robert Schumann, Brahms began writing his first Sonata for Cello and Piano in 1862. This flurry of creativity
would also see the beginnings of a string quintet and his Symphony in C minor, labelling the next few years of
Brahms’s life as his “first maturity”. Influenced strongly by the past masters of classic codified forms – Bach,
Mozart, and Beethoven to name three – whose works lent structure to Brahms’s modern compositions, his
music from this period appeared as “the development of motivic ideas, as sounding discourse”. This is
particularly evident in the first movement of Op.38, which builds upon the organicism and expansion of
motivic cells displayed by Beethoven in his middle period works. During this essay I will show how the
structure of the piece is linked to the initial thematic material, and the importance of this in the context of
mid-19th century Vienna. Below is a structural table of the movement:

Section Bars Formal Tonal Notable Topic

function allusions events
according to
H&D
Exposition 1-8 P Em Singing style
9-20 G, Em
21-31 P Em, C, F
32-41 Tr (P) C (bVI of I) German 6ths
on Ab (when
in C)
42-49 (hinting at F) Avoided
cadence in C
(G7-C7)
50-57 Bm F# dominant
pedal
58-67 S Bm Out of sync Canonic
entries, PAC -Learned style
undermined
68-76 G? V: HC MC at
77??
77-92 Closing zone B Out of sync Pastorale –
entries, PAC horn calls
undermined
Development 93-96 P G Reached
through Eb,
bVI of G
97-104 Bb
105-113 Db
114-125 Pedal F vs Db
chords
126-140 S Fm Out of sync
entries, PAC
undermined
141-144 E-A-D
145-161 RT Em Long B7
Recapitulation 162-181 P Em Out of sync
entries, PAC
undermined
 182-194 P Em
195-218 Tr F Pedal B from
211
219-239 S Em Out of sync
entries, PAC
undermined
240-255 Closing zone E
Coda 256-281 Coda E E vs C7 (bVI)

Arguably the most influential and recognisable melodic features of the opening cello line can be
seen in the first two bars; namely, the opening E minor rising arpeggio, and the following C (bVI) at
bar 2, reached through semitonal movement. Of them, E, B, and C carry the most gravitas – E is the
first note of the sonata and the starting key, whilst B and C establish the bVI degree of the scale via
the interval of a semitone, as well as being the registral high-point of the opening theme. These
three notes carry with them tonal implications that are played and relied upon for the rest of the
movement, for instance, the starting tonal orientations of P, Tr, and S during the exposition outline
the same three notes in the order E, C, B. When the harmonic language surrounding the start of each
new section is taken into account, there is also a clear use of the flat 6 th of a scale that precedes and
foreshadows each modulation. The brief tonicization of G in the primary thematic section can be
seen as the flat 6th of B, the tonal orientation of S. This tonicization of the mediant can also be linked
to the D#dim7 chord prior to the textural break at bars 18-20 that harmonically functions as chord V
to the tonic, and therefore sounds as a half cadence. Enharmonically respelled, this becomes
Ebdim7, based around the flat 6th of G – although the movement to the mediant was not indicated
beforehand, it was justified after. This can also be seen extensively through the development
section, beginning with an Eb in bar 90 to slide into G, after E minor has been prepared for the
repeated exposition. Moving up a third to Bb at bar 97 (as in the arpeggiac motif) is pre-empted by
and Eb minor chord with Gb (bVI) as root. The modulation to Db can be linked to the Bbb at 102, F to
the Db right hand chords at bars 118-119 or 122-124. Similarly, prior to the teleological goal of
sonata form movements, the recapitulation (here a double return), the last crotchet beat before the
extended pedal B(7) section at bar 145 has a C, the flat 6 th of the tonic, in every voice. We can see
then, both key melodic fragments from P have a large effect on the tonal plan, and therefore
structure of the piece: mid-to-large scale harmonic progressions tend to occur in rising thirds, as
enabled and signalled by a preceding flat 6 th. Though not a part of this pattern, it is interesting to
note that, during the only presentation of P in C (bar 34 onwards), 3 German 6ths (2 of which are in
root position) sound on the first beat of bars 35-37 – a joke of Brahms’s?

The thematic content of P also contributes significantly to the structure of the movement in the
sense that the majority of the melodic content found in the rest of the piece can be derived from the
opening statement, in what Brahms calls developing variations – in the words of Bernstein, “the first
two measures of Brahms’s sentence initiate a developmental process beginning with the
movement’s Grundgesalt”. The opening statement in the tonic, the Schoenbergian “grundgesalt”,
can be seen developing as early as throughout the primary thematic zone prior to its restatement in
C for the start of the transition. During the transition, in particular between bars 42 and 52, the cello
line can be viewed as a development on the semitonal movement between B and C, here arranged
sequentially to accompany the piano pedal. The second subject itself is a clear derivation from the
opening arpeggio motif, arranged in canon. Therefore, though it has three clear tonal areas, the
movement’s exposition can be considered monothematic, and thus so can the entire movement; no
new themes are introduced in the development or recapitulation. This can be seen as an extension
of the organicism famously present in Beethoven’s middle period works, complex, granular music
that seemingly germinates from a single melodic cell. The monothematic nature of the piece in
combination with the “out of sync” entries seen at S and the start of the closing zone (and every
section in the recapitulation) not only removes some of the structural markers, such as the
obscuration of the V:HC MC at bar 57, but also builds upon the sense of timelessness created
through the use of harmonically distant keys, such as the Neapolitan, first hinted at from bar 42 and
tonicized at bars 126 and 195. This could be seen as a development from the Schubertian trend of
the mixing up of formal function and thematic materials, and the use of the flat submediant (as in
this piece) to create a feeling of reflective stasis.

During the period in which the piece was composed, the most popular philosophical approach to the
concept of history in Vienna was that of Hegel. This approach to history was based on progress,
more specifically that a clear progress must be seen going forward in order to constitute history. In
the eyes of many Germans, Beethoven had already achieved a musical perfection that could not be
improved upon, thus musical history could no longer be added to. Brahms, then, can be seen as
attempting to one-up Beethoven at his own game by building upon his genre-defining middle period
works with “musical logic” in order to take his place in music history. Interestingly, in the decade
after the composition of Op.38, Nietzsche suggests an adoption of the notion of the unhistorical, in
order to prevent a fixation on the past and enable the creation of new culture: “existence is only an
uninterrupted living in the past, something which exists for self-denial, self-destruction, and self-
contradiction”. Nietzsche himself was well acquainted with certain composers at the time, most
notably Wagner and Liszt, “the figureheads of the New German School”, who took “Beethoven’s
Pastoral Symphony and Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique as their models” and formed “through-
composed music around philosophical or poetic programs, in a quest to unify all venues of artistic
expression”. Brahms had made his distaste for such concepts known publicly, calling it “swindle” and
circulating a petition denouncing the ‘musicians of the future’.

In summary, the first movement of Op.38 meshes together a Hepokoski and Darcy type 3 sonata
form structure with a monothematic organicism stemming from the primary theme of the piece. By
building upon Beethoven’s middle period processes in this way, and becoming a musical agent for
Hegelian philosophies of history, Brahms distanced himself from his contemporaries and, thanks to
composers (himself included) engaging in the volatile political situation in Vienna, from facets of the
public.

Richard Cohn, Audacious Euphony (Oxford, 2012), 1-42

Margaret Notley, Lateness and Brahms (Oxford, 2006), Chapter 1

Margaret Notley, 'Brahms as Liberal: Genre, Style, and Politics in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna', 19th-
Century Music 17/2 (1993), 107-123

Jodi Goble, A Historical and Structural Analysis of Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor, Op. 38, by Johannes Brahms

Bernstein, David W. ""Paths of Harmony" in the First Movement of Brahms's Cello Sonata in E Minor, Op. 38."
Current Musicology, no. 75 (2003): 169-183.