The composer
rahms begins his Third Symphony with F – A flat – F, identified by his biographer Max Kalbeck to stand for his motto ‘frei aber froh’ (free but happy). Certainly, the 50-year-old composer was single at the time of the work’s premiere in 1883, as he would remain for the rest of his life, and he was also enjoying something of a creative peak which would see the Fourth Symphony follow hot on the Third’s heels. The year before, he had begun what would prove a fruitful and fulfilling
