Johannes Brahms composed his Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73, in 1877, while visiting a rural town in Austria. The first movement, Allegro non troppo, is in sonata-allegro form and in triple simple meter, this movement is filled with contradictions in mood and contrasting sections. Several musical aspects of the transitional material, T and the transitions in the development are used in this movement, not only to switch between different keys but also to propel the motion of the music forward to provide contrasts in character when compared to other sections in the movement.
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Several distinct features and characteristics of the transition (T) let the audience know that it is a new section of the first movement, different from…show more content… 58, the melody changes as flute 2, oboe 2 and violas play a strong statement of the opening turn figure (D-C-sharp-D-D-sharp). This turn motif if passed to the cellos and basses in m. 61, where they play C-sharp-B-sharp-C-sharp-B. Flute 1, oboe 1, horn 1, and violins 1 and 2 play the motif, starting in m. 63 at the pitches F-sharp-E-sharp-F-sharp. Instead of playing the last note of the four-note motif, this new three-note pattern is then repeated, only by the flutes and violins, in mm. 64-65, in eighth notes rather than quarter notes. The pattern goes from C-sharp-B-sharp-C sharp, then up to F-sharp-E-sharp-F-sharp, which is then repeated in the next measure.
Letter B, mm. 66-82, brings about a second transition area (T2). Starting in m. 66, the oboes have a detached melody of leaping figures based on the lower neighbor motif. This is a sort of continuation of what the flutes and violins played in mm. 64-65. Starting in m. 71, the leaping violin pattern that had originally acted as an accompaniment takes over for five measures and becomes the melody. The leaping figures move to the flutes and clarinet 1. In m. 78-82, the cellos descend by half-steps while the violins and bassoons ascend, preparing for the Secondary area