The Four Pieces for Piano, op. 119 was the last set of piano music that Johannes Brahms composed. Written in 1893, while spending the summer in Ischl, Upper Austria, they are the last statement of Brahms’ lifelong devotion to the composition of piano music. Brahms had established himself as a prominent composer for the piano early in his career with his three piano sonatas and the First Piano Concerto. The expansive variation sets of his middle career further established him, not only as prominent composer of piano music, but as a master of Classical tradition. At the end of his career, though, he turned to composition of short piano pieces. Perhaps one of the reasons for this was the great depth and intimacy of expression this medium was capable of.
The four pieces of op. 119 are:
- Intermezzo in B minor
- Intermezzo in E minor
- Intermezzo in C major
- Rhapsodie in E flat major
In comparison with Brahms’ other sets of piano music, it seems that he used the term “rhapsodie” somewhat loosely. “Intermezzo” was also Brahms’ umbrella term for anything that either did not fit into a capriccio or a rhapsody, and thus his intermezzos display a wide range of emotions.
Brahms’ late piano music is the perfect example of how great both his composition and pianistic technique was. His display of harmonic understanding is breathtaking in the op. 119 pieces. Furthermore, his subtle use of counterpoint to create polyphonic texture that can only be brought out by a pianist with an extremely sensitive touch is mind-boggling.
However, as brilliant as Brahms’ technical display is in the op. 119, the emotional depth of the pieces is just as amazing. Brahms wrote the following to Clara Schumann about the opening Intermezzo in B minor:
“I am tempted to copy out a small piano piece for you, because I would like to know how you agree with it. It is teeming with dissonances! These may [well] be correct and [can] be explained—but maybe they won’t please your palate, and now I wished, they would be less correct, but more appetizing and agreeable to your taste. The little piece is exceptionally melancholic and ‘to be played very slowly’ is not an understatement. Every bar and every note must sound like a ritard[ando], as if one wanted to suck melancholy out of each and every one, lustily and with pleasure out of these very dissonances! Good Lord, this description will [surely] awaken your desire!”
