Analysis Two Of Brahms's Piano And Cello Sonatas

The German composer Johannes Brahms(1833-1897),was one of the most influential composers in the late Classical and Romantic eras. His adventurous compositional technique was characterized by his mastery of counterpoint; rich texture of harmony and tone colors, combined with his romantic melodies , which Brahms stands among his two German predecessors, Johannes Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, regarded often as "The Three Bs" in the history of Western art music.Throughout Brahms' entire creative life, he composed chamber music for various combinations of instruments. Following in the footsteps of Beethoven's Five Sonatas for piano and cello, Brahms was inspired to compose two sonatas for the same genre: the E minor, opus 38 and the F major, opus 99. The Sonata, opus 38 was finished in 1865 - 21 years later, he composed the Sonata, opus 99. One can trace not only the development of Brahms' compositional technique, but also his maturity as both man and artist through more intimate and lyrical chamber music style of the opus 38, and the highly dramatic and symphonic writing of the opus 99,The thesis aims to generalize the features of Brahms's chamber music, deeply analyze the composition background, style, form and structure, and combine the actual performance methods. I am going to compare the different and find the characteristics of the major performance versions and deeply understand these two sonatas.The thesis contains an Introduction, three Chapters, and Conclusion. The Introduction summarizes the unique character and style of Brahms' chamber music writing. Chapter One discusses the historical and social contexts and influences during the period when Brahms composed these sonatas. Chapter Two was mainly discussing the form, structure, and harmony of these sonatas as they are related and relevant to performance issues, from the technical, musical, stylistic, and interpretive perspectives. In Chapter Three, some of the numerous available recordings of these sonatas are compared by providing a brief biography of each performer and his/her stylistic-interpretive contributions to the discography.