Violin Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 100

Brahms wrote this sonata in the summer of 1886 at Lake Thun in Switzerland, a stay so productive it is now called his 'chamber music summer.' The first movement, marked Allegro amabile (lovingly fast), opens with a gentle waltz-like theme in the piano before the violin enters to extend it, and the second theme quietly borrows a melodic phrase from a song Brahms was writing that same summer for a contralto he admired. A friend of Brahms, Elisabet von Herzogenberg, reportedly described the whole sonata as 'a caress,' which captures how consistently warm and songful it stays across all three movements.

What to listen for

In the second movement, Brahms alternates between two completely different characters: a calm, hymn-like Andante tranquillo and a quick, folk-dance-like Vivace in D minor. Each time the Vivace arrives, it feels like a sudden change of light in the room, and Brahms returns to the Andante three times to round the movement out. In the finale, listen for how the violin and piano trade the main rondo theme back and forth in close overlap, so that the melodic line never fully rests in just one instrument.

Recommended rendition

The recording by Itzhak Perlman and Vladimir Ashkenazy, made at Abbey Road in 1983 and released on EMI Classics, is frequently cited as one of the most idiomatically Brahmsian accounts of all three sonatas.

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