A Bach – Beethoven – Brahms – Schubert – Prokofiev Pun

#2 in a series: Musical Puns

Here is the opening of Beethoven’s third cello-piano sonata, in A Major, Opus 69, written in 1808:

and here is the opening of Brahms’s first cello-piano sonata, in E Minor, Opus 38, written in 1862-65:

If we mentally insert the “missing” third from the opening triad, Beethoven’s theme becomes which looks a lot like a major version of the Brahms theme– the first four notes, anyhow.

Coincidence? Or could Brahms have had Beethoven’s theme in mind, even subconsciously? It’s certainly suggestive that Beethoven’s theme (in major) starts with just the bare theme, unaccompanied, and Brahms (in minor) almost follows suit: the accompaniment is as simple as possible: quiet off-the-beat chords.

As it turns out, Brahms had J. S. Bach in mind.

When Bach visited King Frederick II of Prussia (Frederick the Great) in 1747, the King challenged Bach to improvise a three-voice fugue using this theme:
Bach complied, and subsequently composed an elaborately worked out set of canons and fugues on the same fugue subject, collected as Das Musikalische Opfer (The Musical Offering). Brahms, in conscious homage to Bach, takes the first four notes of the King’s theme for the opening of his theme in the cello sonata.

And notice that both Brahms and Beethoven eventually get to the crucial fifth note of Bach’s theme:
Bach  
Beethoven 
Brahms

For anyone inclined to play this kind of game further, an invaluable resource is Barlow and Morgenstern’s Dictionary of Musical Themes, originally a book (1948) and now a website.  (If that link doesn’t work, paste http://www.multimedialibrary.com/barlow/index.asp
into your browser’s URL address bar.)

It turns up some strange bedfellows!

For example here is the opening of Prokofiev’s second violin concerto, opus 63:  

and here is the opening of Schubert’s sonatina (violin and piano) opus 137 #3:

Both are in G minor, and both start with the same fateful first four notes of Frederick’s theme! But doubtless, in these cases, we’re looking at coincidence rather than pun. . . .  or could Prokofiev have consciously borrowed from Brahms, or Schubert?
Brahms
Prokofiev

Schubert

Take away the ornamental C# in the Prokofiev, and the theme and Brahms’s are identical. And the Schubert and Prokofiev are identical, C# and all. Note also that as in the Beethoven example, the Schubert and Prokofiev themes are announced at the outset naked, sans accompaniment.

By the way, the chess players in the photo at the link above are Oistrakh and Proikofiev.