Music in the Round May Festival Concert - Clara and Agathe

Embedded within Brahms’s glorious Sextet are two coded melodies that give a rare glimpse into the composer’s personal life. Clara’s theme, heard in the slow movement, can be traced to a letter Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann in 1855 in which he added the tune as a personal message. Violinist Joseph Joachim also noticed an allusion in a passionate section of the first movement to Agathe von Siebold, a young singer to whom Brahms was briefly engaged. However, the light-hearted finale carries an air of bravado, possibly intended to demonstrate that he was ready to leave matters of the heart behind him.