- Composer
- Johannes Brahms
(1833–1897) - Work
- Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98
- Composed
- 1884–1885
- Premiere
- October 25, 1885, Meiningen
- Key
- E minor
- Instrumentation
- 2 flutes (piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, triangle, strings
- Movements
- 4 movements
I. Allegro non troppo (E minor)
II. Andante moderato (E major)
III. Allegro giocoso (C major)
IV. Allegro energico e passionato (E minor) - Duration
- Approx. 40 minutes
Early October, 1885. A salon in Vienna. Two pianos sit side by side. At one sits fifty-two-year-old Johannes Brahms. At the other, composer Ignaz Brüll. Turning the pages are Eduard Hanslick, Vienna’s most powerful critic, and Hans Richter, principal conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. The surgeon Theodor Billroth, the musicologist C.F. Pohl — the inner circle of Viennese musical life, all in one room.
Word had spread that Brahms had finished a new symphony.
The first movement ended. Brahms’s biographer Max Kalbeck recorded the moment: “Someone might have cried ‘Bravo!’ Richter mumbled something into his blond beard — from a distance it might have looked like approval. Brüll cleared his throat and shuffled on his piano bench. The rest remained stubbornly silent.”
A painful silence hung in the air. Brahms grumbled: “Fine. Let’s continue.”
That’s when Hanslick burst out:
“The entire first movement felt like being beaten up by two terribly clever people!”
Everyone laughed. The playing resumed. This was the first audience reaction to Brahms’s Symphony No. 4. And 140 years later, it’s still the most accurate description of what this music does to you.
Where the Cherries Never Ripen: The Background
Brahms began his Fourth Symphony in 1884, the year after finishing his Third. He wrote it in Mürzzuschlag, a quiet resort town in southern Austria — a couple of hours from Vienna by train, tucked against the foothills of the Alps.
He spent two summers there (1884–1885) and completed the symphony. But something about his attitude was off.
In September 1885, Brahms wrote to the conductor Hans von Bülow, asking to borrow the Meiningen Court Orchestra for the premiere. The letter’s tone was strange.
“I’m afraid this piece won’t appeal to the public. The cherries here never quite ripen — you wouldn’t eat them.”
Comparing his own symphony to unripe cherries. Classic Brahms self-deprecation — but also a quiet admission that he knew this piece would be tough going. Even his trusted musical confidante Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, after seeing the first movement score, wrote back:
“This work feels like it needs to be examined under a microscope. Sometimes I just want to close my eyes and lean on the composer like a fool, but you, Brahms — you never let us off the hook.”
Was that a compliment or a complaint? Both. And it was spot-on.
The Secret of the Falling Thirds: The First Movement
So what is it about the first movement that makes listeners feel “beaten up”?
The secret is in the very first bars.
The violins sing out. B–G, E–C, A–F♯, D♯–B. The notes fall, one by one. Descending in thirds, without pause. It sounds like a lyrical melody — but look at the skeleton, and it’s a single interval — the falling third — repeated with almost mechanical precision.
Arnold Schoenberg later marveled at this passage in his famous essay “Brahms the Progressive.” Building an entire melody from a single interval — this, he argued, was a forerunner of the motivic economy that would define twentieth-century music.
Hugo Wolf, Brahms’s rival and champion of the Wagner camp, reached the opposite conclusion. “Brahms has perfected the art of composing without ideas.” The same music. One side called it innovation. The other called it empty.
Who was right? History sided with Schoenberg. The first movement of Brahms’s Fourth is now regarded as one of the most finely crafted sonata forms in the symphonic repertoire. It’s also the only first movement among Brahms’s four symphonies that omits the exposition repeat. In musicologist Malcolm MacDonald’s words, the music is “so organic, so ceaselessly evolving” that a repeat would only break its flow.
A Song from the Last Summer: The Second and Third Movements
After the fierce intellectual combat of the first movement, the second lets you breathe.
The horns enter first. The key is E Phrygian — a mode borrowed from medieval church music. Exotic yet ancient in feel. This was a favorite Brahms technique: pulling an old musical language out of the past and making it entirely his own.
The melody unfolds slowly. The strings lay warm harmonies on top. Think of autumn sunlight, the kind that still has warmth but knows it won’t last. This is widely considered the most lyrical slow movement in all four Brahms symphonies.
Then comes the third movement — the only scherzo-like movement in any Brahms symphony. Triangle and all, it bursts with the energy of a festival. The orchestra sprints through bright C major.
But here’s the hidden twist. Buried in the violin melody near the end of the third movement is the opening of the fourth movement’s theme. Brahms had already planted his farewell inside the celebration.
Eight Bars Borrowed from Bach: The Fourth Movement Passacaglia
Now we reach the heart of Brahms’s Fourth. The finale.
“Allegro energico e passionato” — with energy and passion.
This movement is a passacaglia — a Baroque form built on a short theme that repeats in the bass while endless variations pile up above it. No composer had ever used a passacaglia as a symphony finale before. Brahms was the first.
The theme comes from Bach’s Cantata No. 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich (“Lord, my soul longs for Thee”). Just eight bars. On top of those eight bars, Brahms builds exactly thirty variations. Every single one is eight bars long. Not once does he break the pattern.
Then, just before the coda, after the final variation, a four-bar transition appears — the only deviation in the entire movement. And then the coda arrives. The dramatic effect of that single departure, after such relentless discipline, is spine-tingling.
This is no ordinary set of variations. In Variations 12 through 15, the meter shifts from 3/4 to 3/2, creating the sensation that time itself has slowed to half speed. The key drifts from minor to major and back again. It feels like a whole life — joy, sorrow, and everything between — unfolding over a single unchanging foundation.
And then the most astonishing moment. Just before the coda, the falling-third motif from the first movement reappears — inverted to rising fifths — and locks into counterpoint with the passacaglia theme. The story that began in the first movement finds its other half in the last. This was the design that left Schoenberg speechless.
Why Bach? For Brahms, Bach was the alpha and omega of music. To return to Bach in his final symphony was to circle back to the origin of everything — and to put a full stop on his own artistic journey.
It’s probably no coincidence that Brahms never wrote another symphony after this one. He had put everything a symphony could hold into this piece.
Triumph in Meiningen: The Premiere and After
October 25, 1885. Meiningen, a small town in Thuringia, Germany.
Brahms took the podium himself. The orchestra was the Meiningen Court Orchestra, which Hans von Bülow had trained into one of the finest ensembles in Europe. A small-town court orchestra, perhaps — but under Bülow’s exacting standards, it ranked with the very best.
The premiere was a triumph. The work that had been met with silence in a Viennese salon received a thunderous ovation in Meiningen. The German tour that followed brought more acclaim.
But not everyone applauded. Hugo Wolf, writing after the Vienna premiere, was blunt: “Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 expresses nothing whatsoever. The only remarkable thing is the remarkable technique of composing without ideas.”
Hanslick ended up on the opposite side. The man who had joked about being “beaten up” at the piano preview became one of the work’s most passionate advocates after hearing it with a full orchestra. That is the fate of Brahms’s Fourth. It’s not a piece that grabs you on the first listen. But once it gets inside you, it never lets go.
After Brahms: The Legacy of the Passacaglia
The influence of Brahms’s Fourth is most visible in the passacaglia finale.
In 1897, the year Brahms died, the young Viennese composer Alexander von Zemlinsky (Schoenberg’s teacher) placed a passacaglia in his own symphony finale. In 1908, Anton Webern made a passacaglia for orchestra his Opus 1. Alban Berg borrowed the form for his Orchestral Songs in 1912.
The Baroque form that Brahms brought back to life became a new language for twentieth-century music. The man labeled a conservative ended up leaving the most radical legacy of all.
Schoenberg’s words echo again: Brahms was a progressive.
In his First Symphony, Brahms spent twenty agonizing years before daring to open the door to the symphonic form. In his Fourth, he closed that door himself. That he closed it with such perfection — that is why Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 is a masterpiece.
Recommended Recordings
Brahms’s Fourth has inspired some legendary recordings.
Carlos Kleiber / Vienna Philharmonic (1980) — Many critics call this the greatest Brahms Fourth ever recorded. Blazing momentum meets architectural precision. The fourth movement is almost unbearably tense.
Wilhelm Furtwängler / Berlin Philharmonic (1948) — A historic document that carries the weight of postwar Berlin in every note. Free-flowing tempi and a depth of sound that borders on the spiritual.
Celibidache / Munich Philharmonic (1985) — Celibidache’s famously slow tempi stretch this forty-minute work to nearly fifty. Slow, but never boring — a meditative journey for those who want to hear every grain of this symphony.
Follow the Score
The full score is freely available at IMSLP. View the Symphony No. 4, Op. 98 score on IMSLP
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Brahms’s Fourth his last symphony?
Brahms lived another twelve years after completing it, but never wrote another symphony. He never explained why. Most scholars believe that after the Fourth — especially the passacaglia finale, where he circled back to Bach — he felt he had explored everything the symphonic form had to offer. He turned his attention to chamber works, including his beloved clarinet sonatas and the Clarinet Quintet.
What’s the difference between a passacaglia and a chaconne?
Both are Baroque forms built on a repeating bass theme with variations layered above. Strictly speaking, in a passacaglia the theme can migrate to other voices beyond the bass, while a chaconne tends to fix the harmonic progression itself. In practice, the distinction blurs depending on the era and the scholar. Some sources actually call Brahms’s finale a “chaconne.”
Which Brahms symphony should I start with?
The Second is the friendliest. Bright and warm, it’s often called “Brahms’s Pastoral Symphony.” From there, try the dramatic arc of the First, and then take on the Fourth. See our Symphony Beginner’s Guide for more.
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