program - SVIZ

Listeners and musicologists are always kept busy by the question of the
relationship between an artist’s inner life and the content of his or her art.
In this regard, many commentators arrive at completely opposing convictions:
some believe that the artist can only extract the material for his or her
artworks from personal experience, while others are of the opinion that there
is no genuine link between the two and that the artist is bound primarily by
the laws of his or her craft and material.
Similar questions are posed by of both of Brahms’s string sextets, which seem
to be marked to a large extent by the composer’s relationship to women.
Today, we know that Brahms’s main muse was Clara Schumann, especially
after the death of her husband, the great composer Robert Schumann, who
was also an ardent supporter of the young Brahms. However, the lives of
Clara and Johannes never actually came together. Similarly, Brahms never
found the path to Agatha Siebold, with whom he was actually on the brink of
marriage at one point. If we are to believe the sincerity of his letters it would
seem that at the last moment the composer took fright at a loss of freedom.
Brahms wrote to Agatha: “I love you! I must see you again, but I cannot wear
fetters! Write if I may return, to hold you, to kiss you, to tell you that I love
you.” Agatha rejected him and the relationship was broken off. Brahms later
regretted his actions, writing: “I behaved like a scoundrel towards Agatha.”
However, he only underwent a genuine catharsis on composing the Second
String Sextet, saying that the work “redeemed him from the last love”.
It is not a case, however, of simply seeking the connection between the love
story and the music in the prevailing gentle atmosphere of the work, which is
in places even reminiscent of the music of Schubert, a composer Brahms was
studying a great deal during this period. The link should instead be sought
in the thematic material, which is conceived as a kind of code for his love for
Agatha. Thus at the end of the first theme we find a short musical idea made
up of the tones a-g-a-b(‘h’ in German)-e, in which we can see the spelling of
Agatha’s name (without the letter ‘t’). This idea is counterpointed with the
short melodic fragment a-d-e. With the aid of this sequence of tones Brahms
tells us: “Agatha ade!”, or “Farewell Agatha!”. This short motto becomes a key
structural element in the composition, as it marks not only the first movement
but can also be found in the second slow movement. It seems, however, that
Brahms gives the relationship between the tones of this Agatha motive priority
over the human relationship – perhaps this is why he was never capable
of a real love affair.
The first movement of the sextet, which gains most of its substance from long
melodies, derives from a somewhat mysterious theme that is harmonically
coloured with shifts to the sphere of the mediant. It is precisely these shifts that
give a special charm to the distant modulations in the development, where
the harmonic scheme gains priority over the melodic. The second movement
is designed as a scherzo with undertones of a ballad, while the trio shifts to
a more vivacious and rural ländler. The slow movement, planned as a series
of variations, again draws its motivic content from the Agatha motto. The
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