String Quartet No. 3 (Brahms)

The String Quartet No. 3 in B♭ major, Op. 67, was composed by Johannes Brahms in the summer of 1875 and published by the firm of Fritz Simrock.[1] It received its premiere performance on October 30, 1876 in Berlin.[2] It has four movements:

Brahms composed the work in Ziegelhausen, near Heidelberg, and dedicated it to Professor Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann, an amateur cellist who had hosted Brahms on a visit to Utrecht. Brahms was at the time the artistic director of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.[1][2] The work is lighthearted and cheerful, "a useless trifle", as he put it, "to avoid facing the serious countenance of a symphony", referring to the work on his Symphony No. 1 which debuted a week later.[1]

The irony to this quartet is that although the quartet is dedicated to Engelmann, who was a cellist, throughout the entire quartet, there is no cello melody; the violins would have a melody throughout the piece and in the third movement, the Agitato, the melody of the movement is mainly played by a viola instead of the cello. Engelmann was rather puzzled by how the quartet was thus configured, but appreciated its dedication to him all the same. In a letter about the quartet to Engelmann, Brahms said "This quartet rather resembles your wife—very dainty, but brilliant! ...It's no longer a question of a forceps delivery; but of simply standing by. There’s no cello solo in it, but such a tender viola solo that you may want to change your instrument for its sake!".[3]