Symphonie (C moll) [No. 1] für Groſses Orchester ... Op. 68. Partitur. [Full score]

Berlin: Verlag und Eigenthum von N. Simrock [PN 7957], 1877. Folio. Half black morocco with black cloth boards, titling gilt to spine, original publisher's blue printed wrappers bound in at conclusion. 1f. (recto title, verso publisher's note regarding performance rights), 3-100 pp. Title lithographed, with "Lith. Anst. v. C.G. Röder, Leipzig" to foot; music engraved.

With distributors to title London: Stanley Lucas, Weber & Co.; New-York: G. Schirmer; St. Petersburg: A. Büttner; Basel, Zürich, Luzern, St. Galllen u. Strassburg bei Gebrüder Hug; and handstamp "49, Gt. Portland Street, London, W." to foot.

Wrappers worn and with small edge tears and chips; small London bookseller's label to lower inner corner of front pastedown. Uniformly browned, slightly heavier at edges; occasional small stains, edge tears, and chips; slightly brittle at edges. First Edition, first issue. Hofmann p. 147. McCorkle p. 292. Deutsch p. 256. Fuld p. 551.

"In his article 'Neue Bahnen,' Schumann hinted that it was Brahms's destiny to compose for orchestra. By the time of Brahms's death in 1897, this prediction had been fulfilled with the creation of two serenades, four concertos, a set of variations, two overtures and four symphonies." Walter Frisch in Grove Music Online

"Finally, there is a new splendour and character in the attitude to orchestral sound. Despite all the striking and effective scoring in the early orchestral pieces and the choral works of the later 1860s, it is in this Symphony that Brahms proclaims himself a master of that greatest of instruments, the symphony orchestra." McDonald: Brahms, p. 250.