ABSTRACT

Johannes Brahms's parsimony clearly operated in the context of his highly honed critical faculties. Material not fully developed was going to be retained only if it had potential, and its potential would be pursued and realized at a future date only if it had a special appropriateness to a new project then in hand. Brahms's interest in radical middle-movement forms, especially third-movement types had come to the fore in the Second String Quartet, the first two symphonies. By analogy with much older compositional practices, Brahms's treatment of his previous material in the Second String Sextet reminds one somewhat of paraphrase technique, those in the First String Quintet of parody. Brahms decided that Gavotte II was to appear as a Presto, hence appreciably faster than the normal speed-range for a gavotte, as the fourth section of the five-section movement. The second section was to be a slower variation of this material, in a dance-form new to this material, the siciliano.