Among the 20 pieces comprising Brahms' last four sets for piano are 14 intermezzos, including the three in Op. 117. An intermezzo is a movement, of course, framed by other movements. Brahms never intended for these piano works to be thought of that way. Instead, he viewed them as interludes from life's tribulations, a time for reflection and healing. The three works here are all largely sedate, mellow creations, though beneath the surface of the last two there are moments of darkness and tension.

Marked Andante non troppo e con molta espressione, the Intermezzo in B flat minor opens with a lovely, quite memorable theme of Romantic temperament. Though its mood is gentle and warm, its music develops a measure of tension before it reaches the utterly serene alternate theme, another beautiful creation by Brahms. The music darkens as the main theme is developed in succeeding episodes, but calm returns once more with the reappearance of the alternate theme, though the work ends in an ambivalent mood. Lasting about five minutes, this intermezzo is one of Brahms' more popular solo piano works.

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Occasionally unsure what title, if any, he should give a piece, Brahms came to use the term intermezzo as a rubric under which he could file anything that was not especially whimsical or fiery. The Three Intermezzi, Op. 117, do not require the technical facility necessary to perform many of his earlier works, but an incisive musicality is paramount for a proper understanding of these musical miniatures. The fact that they are all marked Andante also presents a problem for the performer, who must probe the details of each work and stress the contrasting elements. All three Intermezzi of Op. 117 were written in the summer of 1892, the year of their publication. This is one of the rare cases in which Brahms gave a specific title for an entire set of pieces. Two of the three Intermezzi received their first performances shortly after they were written: No. 1 on February 18, 1893, and No. 2 on January 30 of the same year.

Prefaced by lines from Herder's translation of Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament, a Scottish lullaby, the first Intermezzo is in E flat major and cast in ABA' form. The central section, on E flat minor, obscures the 6/8 meter before returning to the major mode for the modified reprise of the first section.

A sonata-form movement in B flat minor, the second Intermezzo provides an excellent example of thematic transformation. The first theme, traced by the uppermost thirty-second notes in the arpeggios of the first two measures, becomes the second theme, played in the top notes of block chords 30 measures later. Because the rhythmic movement from note to note is changed and the textures of the two passages are very dissimilar, it takes a perceptive pianist to locate and bring out the transformed melody. Brahms chooses the relative major, D flat, for the second theme while the development section is built around the fluid arpeggios of the first theme. In the recapitulation, the second theme, truncated and transformed, vacillates between the tonic major and minor.

Brahms once referred to the third Intermezzo of Op. 117 as "the lullaby of all my grief." In C sharp minor, the piece is in ternary form (ABA'), with a central section on A major. Section A consists of two ideas, the first stated in parallel octaves. The entire complex is repeated, although the melodies are accompanied differently and some segments appear in a higher register. The move to A major for the B section creates a sense of relaxation as the leaping theme, again with right-hand octaves, provides a stark contrast to the linear, opening idea. A brief transition leads to the return of section A, re-harmonized and in a form more akin to its second half than to the beginning.

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There are three intermezzi that make up Brahms' Op. 117. All have slow markings and divulge the growing tendency in the composer's late piano compositions toward serenity and meditative moods. This Intermezzo in E flat major encompasses much else of late Brahms, having that consoling and almost angelic manner in its outer sections and a quite serious and dark ponderousness in its middle section. This Intermezzo is a lullaby and carries slightly different markings for its three sections: Andante moderato, Piu adagio, and Un poco piu andante. Brahms prefaces the music with a quote from a favorite Scottish cradle song: "Balou, my boy, lye still and sleep, it grieves me sore to hear thee weep." The year he composed these intermezzi, Brahms lost his sister Elise and his longtime friend Elizabeth von Herzogenberg. Thus, the darker character of the work—and the others in the set—is easy to understand. The piece opens with a lovely theme, whose mellow character mixes consolation and dreaminess. The bridge passage leading to the middle section presents a darker variant of the theme. The music that follows is melancholy and troubled, though harnessed in by that typically Brahmsian philosophical manner, as if dignity must be maintained and emotions controlled in times of grieving. The main theme returns and the piece quietly ends. Typical performances of this Intermezzo last five minutes.

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