Symphony No. 4 in E Minor

…in the finale of the Symphony No. 4 in E Minor (1884–85), an extended chaconne, or set of variations over an (eight-bar) repeated bass melody. This movement is almost Baroque; and elsewhere in the work Brahms employs Baroque contrapuntal techniques, chromatic labyrinths, and modal melody that hovers between major and…

…one year, Brahms’s last symphony, No. 4 in E Minor (1884–85), was begun. This work may well have been inspired by the ancient Greek tragedies of Sophocles that Brahms had been reading at the time. The symphony’s most important movement is once more the finale. Brahms took a simple theme…