Intermezzo in A

Brahms wrote his Op. 118 (1893) in his last years and dedicated the set to Clara Schumann; the six pieces — four intermezzos, a ballade, and a romance — sit at the heart of his late piano output. The A-major Intermezzo is the most-played of the six: a flowing, polyphonic piece in A major with a poignant central section in F♯ minor, and a final return that brings the opening material back transformed.

Technically the piece tests three Grade 7 priorities at the highest level: voicing multiple polyphonic lines simultaneously through a continuous chordal texture, sustained legato playing across wide-arcing phrases, and a sensitive pedal plan that clarifies the harmonic shifts without blurring the multi-voice texture. The piece is essentially a four-voice texture in keyboard reduction; the student must hear and voice each line as it weaves through the chordal substance.

Two pitfalls. First, students often play the texture as block chords and miss the polyphonic substance — Brahms's writing rewards a reading that voices each line with attention to its independent direction. Practise voice-by-voice, then re-add the surrounding texture. Second, the central F♯ minor episode is the emotional centre of the piece and often gets played at the same dynamic as the outer sections; the central section needs a clear interior poise that contrasts with the surrounding material.

Brahms's complete Op. 118 is on IMSLP in clean public-domain editions. Hearing the surrounding pieces — particularly the famous A-minor Intermezzo No. 1 — calibrates the sustained late-Romantic register Brahms was working in.