LDV67

AMAURY COEYTAUX, GEOFFROY COUTEAU 19 The sublime Adagio that follows is dedicated in spirit to the memory of Felix Schumann, who died in 1879; Brahms appended its opening bars to the letter he wrote to Clara Schumann on the occasion of the young man’s death. Introduced by the piano, it is almost a chorale, a dignified and moving lament of gentle and poignant fullness. The violin answers pensively, taking up the theme. A march follows, grave yet heroic; the hymn returns, with even greater effusiveness; then comes an extraordinarily moving coda, suspended over the march rhythm like a procession gradually moving away before a final surge of emotion closes the movement. The finale, Allegro molto moderato, unstable and sometimes a little feverish, harks back to the initial, highly lyrical spirit of the work, with its character of sunny intimacy, only very rarely overcast, yet expressing a sort of melancholic joy typical of Brahms, which nothing really disturbs; and the motif of the Adagio fleetingly recurs, thus ensuring, along with the Regenlied theme, the unity of this tenderly sensuous work.