The music of romanticism gets out of the objective and formalistic framework of classicism, emphasizes the subjective and the emotional charateristics, and tries to express freedom from formality. But the music of romanticism, on the one hand, is to b...
The music of romanticism gets out of the objective and formalistic framework of classicism, emphasizes the subjective and the emotional charateristics, and tries to express freedom from formality. But the music of romanticism, on the one hand, is to be intimate to the formalistic style of classicism, and on the other hand it has an inclination to be free from the logic of order, balance and control. In these trends of romanticism, Johannes Brahms is a great composer in the nineteenth century who takes the formalistic element of classicism, and at the same time constructs the independent world of music by combining all the new and old trends ingeniously on the basis of that form. As a representative of the conservatives who stick to the classicism of Germany, he is a musician of romanticism as well as the representative of neoclassicists who takes a serious view of the traditional form on the ground of classic style.
Brahms composed several cello sonatas, including one which he composed at the age of eighteen, but only two sonatas No.1 Op.38 and No.2 Op.99 remain till now. Twenty years lie between the composition of Brahm's two cello sonatas, twenty years of development and maturing in Brahm's instrumental style and technique. The two works are in strong constrast to each other; the first is dark and elegiac in tone, the second passionate and dramatic grandeur. Additionally, the first has three movements, the second four. These two sonatas are the masterpieces of the romantic period, and they are frequently performed with the works of Beethoven.
In this thesis, I selected Brahm's cello sonata No.1 Op.38 which was composed in 1862 through 1865, and have considered his musical world as represented through the form of classicism and the musical expression of romanticism by analyzing this sonata. Before analyzing this sonata, we have studied the musical characteristics of Brahms. In the analysis of the work, we have considered in every movement how the form and the matter are established and developed, and as a performer tried to make the Brahms cello sonata No.1 deeply understood.