Brahms Intermezzo Op. 117, No. 1: what’s up with the B-section?
In terms of difficulty, Brahms Intermezzo Op. 117, No. 1 is on the easier end of the Brahms spectrum, but Brahms works on the whole are on the harder end of the spectrum of piano repertoire in general. So, “easy” hardly describes it. It may not require what we consider to be daunting chops, but it has musical complexities that require virtuosic feats of understanding.
The main difficulties are in the B-section.
A Performance Analysis
This section of this piece is disorienting if you try to digest it all at once. It’s rhythmically complicated with syncopations, or displacements … or maybe disagreements between written and perceived meter, or perhaps even what I’d like to call “polymeterishness.” But if you break it down piece by piece, and examine them in the right order, it’s actually not as complex as it seems.
Let’s examine the first phrase. What we find there can be extrapolated to explain the entire section.
Melody
The principle melody goes like this (below). Notice how I’ve re-metered it, based on what it sounds like.
Every other melodic segment is offset by an octave, so that the passage as whole seems like two voices in a call-and-response arrangement, like this:
Because of the dynamic markings, each melodic segment sounds like it crests on a downbeat.
Brahms maps this melody onto a 6/8 meter in a nuanced way. First, the crests are aligned so that the first one happens half-way through the first measure, rather than on that measure’s downbeat: a type of displacement. Secondly, he syncopates the entire thing by shifting it to the right by an 8th note: another kind of displacement.
He also writes in (and exaggerates) the breath that would naturally occur in between slurs:
That’s what’s going on here.
Accompaniment
Everything else in the phrase supports this melodic idea. In other words, everything else is accompaniment. Although the accompaniment contains what seems like counterpoint, my position is that it’s not.
The way I see it, this theoretically happens:
This does not constitute the addition of a new voice. Instead, it simply “orchestrates” one voice to give it a richer color. A truly refined pianist would bring out the tops, and let the lower note of each octave seem like a shadow.
But as I said, that is what theoretically happens. What actually happens is this:
This may be more of an opinion than a fact, but I’d suggest that this is barely different from the previous octave example. Although the lower notes in this arrangement take on a significance of their own – become a second voice – they don’t become an independent voice. Instead, they continue to be a shadow of the upper voice. This passage appears to have a new, contrapuntal aspect, but in fact it is merely decorative. Without independence, you don’t have enough “counter” to achieve counterpoint.
I would suggest that the pianist play this passage as if the octaves were blocked: emphasize the upper notes, and suppress the lower ones. However, I could also imagine an interpretation that allows for some emphasis of the broken octaves.
Brahms can be so curiously intricate. You can’t quite stop your explanation of this passage with the term “broken octaves.” There’s more going on here.
Notice that in measures 21 and 23, the octaves are attached to the soprano, but in measures 22 and 24, they’re part of the alto. Is this merely a notational convenience that keeps the graphic information centered on the staff? Or is Brahms encouraging an “alternating octave” interpretation in some instances, but not in others? That’s for you to decide.
The Alto
Octave notes aside, the alto’s role is purely and simply accompanimental.
Most of the upper alto notes double the soprano melody. What a curious thing! If this were an orchestral reduction, I’d totally get this. But in a piano piece? How could that information possibly be conveyed to the listener? The way I explain it is by allying myself with those who assert that Brahms wrote absolute music. This isn’t a piano piece as much as it is a piece of music that happens to use the piano as its medium. That’s unfair in the sense that it could be taken to undercut what beautiful piano music this is. But that absolutism is there, nonetheless.
In performance, I’m going to of course ignore the doublings and suppress the alto in favor of the melody, except in the instances where dissonance (the 2nds in measures 23 and 24) occurs between the two. I’ll bring that out.
The Bass
In the LH, we finally come to something that is straightforward accompaniment, and in it, we find Brahms’ Romanticism separating him from Bach by a hundred years of musical style.
This is the pianistic equivalent of strumming a guitar. As straightforward as the concept is, executing it on the piano requires nuance. The 2nd, 3rd, and 4th notes of each 16th-note group must blend with the bass note. (Pedal is, of course, assumed.) This takes patience, practice, and active listening.
I recommend as a general rule that you play octaves with octave fingerings. So, I agree with the “1” in measure 21, and would finger all the rest of these measures in a similar way. I realize this forces you into an awkward crossover onto finger #2 in the opening figure (I happen to think finger #3 would work just as well), but if you time it with a sweeping motion of your forearm, it falls under your fingers in a satisfying way.
The alternative would be to replace that “2” with something like “4,” which would force you into a choreography that would resemble a waltz accompaniment … and that would be too clunky for this passage. In order to achieve that strumming guitar or harp-like effect, you need sweep more than anything else.
Summary
How to play it:
Now that I’ve broken it down, it’s easy to see how to play this passage (and by extension, this section):
- Emphasize the melody. Take Brahms’ dynamic markings to heart so that each slurred segment crests on the middle note.
- Perhaps emphasize the RH alternating octaves to at least some degree in at least some measures.
- Suppress the alto except where it clashes with the melody.
- Give the LH a sense of sweep as you blend the upper notes with the bass.