String Quartet No. 1 in C Minor

However robust, even caustic he may have seemed in public, privately Brahms was acutely sensitive and consumed by self-doubt. He once claimed that he had destroyed some 20 string quartets before allowing his official First out into the world in 1873. As with his roughly contemporary First Symphony, the problem was Beethoven, who had cast such a long shadow in both genres that Brahms feared to follow in his footsteps. Eventually, however, he grasped the nettle, choosing Beethoven’s "Promethean" key, C minor, as his Quartet's home tonality. But although there is a Beethoven-like sense of struggle in the quasi-orchestral first movement and in the driven, ultimately dark finale, the middle movements have a tender intimacy and twilit poise that’s much more typical of Brahms. That’s especially true of the exquisite “Allegretto” third movement, which speaks mostly in whispers. In facing down his great classical idol, Brahms takes an important step in the process of becoming himself.