Bob Draper: >Brahms' first is a very similar to Beethovens ninth yet I still list it >as my favourite work of all time. The last movement in particular owes a >lot to the ninth. > >When one reaches journey's end in Brahms' first it seems to arrive >naturally. We reach a better place. Jan Swafford, in the Brahms bio I reviewed recently, claims that, prior to the first symphony, Brahms had an extremely hard time learning to write finales in general (with the g minor piano quartet a strikingly successful exception. In his first piano concerto, he says, Brahms cribbed the finale from Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, and Swafford claims that these finales can be analyzed as essentially the same piece. Haven't gotten around to a one on one comparison yet, myself. Jim Tobin