Johannes Brahms reportedly once observed that the symphony is “a matter of life and death.” And we should take him at his word when it comes to the existential seriousness of this declaration: Brahms was famously already past 40 when he (finally) found the courage to complete his first contribution to a genre that had been elevated by the 19th century, in the wake of Beethoven, into an “opus metaphysicum.” The symphony thus represented an almost unattainably lofty achievement for the following generation of composers.

With no less than Robert Schumann already proclaiming the piano works of the young Brahms to be “veiled symphonies,” Brahms was expected to begin composing works as quickly as possible that would deploy “the powers of the masses”  – which is to say, works for chorus and orchestra. Yet despite this intense pressure,  his scrupulous  sense of self-criticism remained. Brahms hesitated for a long time, working his way step by step through concertos, serenades, and choral works (not least in “A German Requiem”) toward more complex forms calling for large orchestra. But then things went quickly: Just a year after his enthusiastically received symphonic debut (announced by the powerful timpani strokes that begin the First Symphony), in 1877, Brahms’s Second Symphony was introduced to the world – a “belated idyll” that bears witness to the composer’s love of nature.

Bernard Haitink and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe have been imitating this gradual approach to larger forms in their own programming: They launched their new Brahms cycle at LUCERNE FESTIVAL at the Piano with the two orchestral serenades and the First Piano Concerto: the very works with which the hesitant symphonist began experimenting on a larger canvas. Now, for the Easter Festival, the first two symphonies take the spotlight as the second part of this epic cycle and have been programmed for 9 and 13 April. These Lucerne performances will serve as a powerful reminder that Brahms’s cautious attitude resulted in a completely independent symphonic body of work.