Brahms Second Symphony No 1 Essay

Even though Johannes Brahms is ordinary well-known a master of symphonic genre, he composed only four symphonies in his life. Further, Brahms completed the symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, called “Ludwig van Beethoven’s tenth symphony” during around twentieth years from sketches since 1855. In the regard, the compositional process of the first symphony includes a long and mysterious history because of self-critical fastidiousness to make himself destroy his early works. On the other hand, there is an another mystery regarding his symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73. Most of his compositional process spent a long time with of self-critical fastidiousness such as his first symphony, yet he completed his second symphony during three months in …show more content…
The biographers and scholars generally conclude one reason for this process, nevertheless there are several clues and possibilities to explain regarding this process. In this regard, this paper presents the reasons on the three separated bodies to explain about this mystery process. In the first body of paper, it provides the following the Beethoven’s compositional process of symphonic genre and the similarity between Brahms’ compositional process from the first symphony to the second symphony and Beethoven’s compositional process from the fifth symphony to the sixth symphony with historical and analytical evidences. The second body of paper offers regarding the Brahms’ challenges of symphony until the finishing of his first symphony to show his learning process of the symphonic genre and experiment for orchestration so that this paper gives analytical evidences to show to be mature as a master of symphonic genre and the historical evidences after the first symphony for his second symphony. In addition, the last body mentions regarding the effect from the aggressive participating of Clara Schumann and many positive comments from friends about the Brahms’ second symphony with Brahms’ letters, Clara’s letters and friends’