Table of Contents

Genesis and Historical Place: Contemporaries, Documents, Commentaries; Analysis: Theme, First Movement, Melancholy, The Middle Movements, Second Movement, Third Movement, Fourth Movement; In Conclusion: Idyll, Melancholy, and Monumental Form, Idyll, Strategies, Brahms's Second Again; Bibliography; Index of Names and Musical Works.

Reviews

["Late Idyll"] should be required reading, not only for listeners and students but for conductors as well...In Brinkmann's hands, [Brahms's Second Symphony] takes its rightful place in intellectual and social history. -- Leon Botstein "Times Literary Supplement"

Mr. Brinkmann's monograph is a loving look at Brahms as exemplar of the melancholic temperament...[His book is] technical, but makes reasonable leaps from technical observations to aesthetic claims. That may be the only way to understand music in words: Immerse oneself in it, learn its jargon and come out the other side hearing connections previously only guessed at. -- Kenneth LaFave "Washington Times"

Ý"Late Idyll"¨ should be required reading, not only for listeners and students but for conductors as well...In Brinkmann's hands, ÝBrahms's Second Symphony¨ takes its rightful place in intellectual and social history. -- Leon Botstein "Times Literary Supplement"

Brinkmann guides the reader carefully through the entire composition, pausing occasionally to examine a detail here and there. He attractively combines analytical, hermeneutic, biographical, and historical material, relating the symphony to Brahm's other works and to those of his contemporaries and predecessors (particularly Beethoven), and making frequent reference to the cultural milieu of late 19th century Europe.