page_title: Symphony No. 1 (Brahms)
section_title: Allegretto
hierarchical_section_title: Symphony No. 1 (Brahms) / III. Un poco allegretto e grazioso / Allegretto
caption_attribution_description: English: The first few bars of the clarinet part in the third movement of Brahms's Symphony No. 1 This music was published in 1877 and is in the public domain. Image created using Sibelius 5 software.
context_page_description: Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing this work, whose sketches date from 1854. Brahms himself declared that the symphony, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876. The premiere of this symphony, conducted by the composer's friend Felix Otto Dessoff, occurred on 4 November 1876, in Karlsruhe, then in the Grand Duchy of Baden. A typical performance lasts between 45 and 50 minutes.
context_section_description: The Allegretto is in the key of A♭ major and begins with a calm, stepwise melody in the clarinet. The four-bar figure is extended to an irregular five bars through a small bridge between the phrases by the strings. The clarinet rounds off the A theme in the Allegretto with an inversion of the first five bars heard.
  The B theme enters in measure 11 and features a descending dotted-eighth-note pattern in the flute, clarinet, and bassoon with the strings echoing the rhythm in rising and falling figures. After eight measures, A₁ appears with the violins iterating the first theme and a longer, chromatic bridge section that extends the phrase structure to seven bars. B₁ is presented with an extension into C.
  The C and D themes differ from the first two in that they are shorter and more angular rhythmically. The A and B themes feature an almost constant eighth-note pizzicato in the strings, whereas C and D are more complex with an interlocking sixteenth-note pattern accompanying the winds. Movement from the major mode to F minor also marks these sections as apart from preceding material. This obvious contrast in character and mood can lend one to think of the C and D sections as a sort of trio within the first Allegretto section in the larger ternary form displayed by the movement as a whole. The symmetry within one section reflects the symmetry of the whole.
  A₂ closes off the first major section with the clarinet stating the first theme, much as it did in the beginning, finishing with a transition to the trio.
caption: The A theme as stated by the clarinet
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