GEOFFROY COUTEAU, NICOLAS BALDEYROU ∙ AMAURY COEYTAUX, ANTOINE DREYFUSS 23 This unique tone is accompanied by a formal mastery all the more astounding in that it always appears subordinate to the poetic content, without any preestablished plan. From the very beginning of the First Sonata, poetry embraces rigour. The skilfully crafted Allegro appassionato, after a keyboard introduction in octaves, presents a gentle, highly lyrical theme, with energetic punctuations from the piano, wild and tender in turn. Several other themes follow and alternate with one another, fierce or more intimate, meditative or more abrupt, even harsh. A rhapsodic tone runs through this movement, so rich in melody and rhythmic variety, which constantly contrasts gentleness and authority, right up to the sublime coda, at once ethereal and sombre, which fades away into the night; Brahms at his greatest has spoken. The Andante un poco Adagio is a desolate song, a romance of powerful yet restrained emotion, simply constructed after the complexity of the first movement. It expresses a Mozartian purity, reminiscent of the Adagio of the Quintet op.115, in no way disturbed by the central section which prolongs the same spirit, before the return of the opening theme, initially on the piano, again like a lullaby. And it is no longer a song that closes the movement, but a caress of the soul.
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