The symphony is divided into four movements with the following tempo markings: This is the only one of Brahms' four symphonies to end in a minor key. A typical performance lasts about 40 minutes.
Analysis
I. Allegro non troppo
This movement is in sonata form, although it features some unique approaches to development. For instance, there is no repeat of the exposition; according to the late Malcolm MacDonald, the music is so "powerfully organic and continuously unfolding" that such a repeat would hinder forward progress. The opening theme is initially serene in character, although its composition in a chain of descending thirds adds a fateful air. Its left-versus-right fragmented melodic form also introduces a feeling of conflict which Brahms uses as a fundamental motivation throughout the movement.
This movement is the only one with the character of a scherzo to be found in Brahms' symphonies. It is not in typical scherzo form, however, being in 2/4 time and in sonata form, without a trio. The sonata form itself is modified further, with a foreshortened recapitulation and with the secondary theme nearly absent in the development and coda.
IV. Allegro energico e passionato
This last movement is notable as a rare example of a symphonic passacaglia, which is similar to a chaconne with the slight difference that the subject can appear in more voices than the bass. For the repeating theme, Brahms adapted the chaconne theme in the closing movement of Johann Sebastian Bach's cantata, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich, BWV 150. An analysis of this last movement by Walter Frisch provides yet further interpretation to Brahms' structure of this work, by giving sections sonata form dimensions. Arnold Schoenberg, in his essay Brahms the Progressive, pointed out several thematic relationships in the score, as does Malcolm MacDonald in his biography of the composer. The first half of the chaconne theme is anticipated in the bass during the coda at an important point of the preceding movement; and the first movement's descending thirds, transposed by a fifth, appear in counterpoint during one of the final variations of the chaconne.
The work was given its premiere in Meiningen on October 25, 1885, with Brahms himself conducting. The piece had earlier been given to a small private audience in a version for two pianos, played by Brahms and Ignaz Brüll. Brahms' friend and biographer Max Kalbeck, reported that the critic Eduard Hanslick, acting as one of the page-turners, exclaimed on hearing the first movement at this performance: "For this whole movement I had the feeling that I was being given a beating by two incredibly intelligent people." Hanslick, however, wrote also that " the musician, there is not another modern piece so productive as a subject for study. It is like a dark well; the longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back." The musicologist Donald Francis Tovey praises the work as “one of the greatest orchestral works since Beethoven,” and singles out the end of the first movement, which “bears comparison with the greatest climaxes in classical music, not excluding Beethoven.” The symphony is rich in allusions, most notably to various Beethoven compositions. The symphony may well have been inspired by the playAntony and Cleopatra, which Brahms had been researching at the time. Progressive rock group Yes's keyboardist Rick Wakeman abridged and arranged the third movement for various keyboards in the instrumental "Cans and Brahms" from the 1971 album Fragile.
