Quality: 10

Difficulty: Solo-8, Accompaniment-9.5

21:44

Highest Note: alt. F

Brahms arranged his string quintet op. 111 for four-hand piano in December 1890. He then told his patrons that "the time has come for you to say goodbye to any further compositions of mine." However, when he heard Richard von Mühlfeld play some of Weber's works with the Meiningen Court Orchestra, he effectively came out of retirement to write for him. In 1891 he wrote the clarinet trio (op. 114) and the clarinet quintet (op. 115) for Mühlfeld; his two sonatas (in the same keys as Weber's concertos) came in the summer of 1894.

Brahms's sonatas were the first extended works for clarinet and piano since Weber's Grand Duo Concertante, with the possible exception of Schumann's "character pieces".

This sonata was premiered by Mühlfeld and Brahms in November 1894 to a group of friends, including Clara Schumann; the first public performance (also by Mühlfeld and Brahms) took place on January 7, 1895, at Tonkünstlerverein in Vienna. It was the last clarinet work Brahms wrote, and one of his last compositions.

There is also a version for viola and piano, arranged by Brahms; however, he felt it to be "clumsy and unsatisying."

There are four movements, with the third and fourth continuous.

This piece is harder than it sounds, a chamber piece with a challenging piano part.

Romantic style: piano is an equal partner, chromaticism, hemiola

Musicality

Intense, focused sound

Air support

Finger legato

Good sense of rhythm (lots of switching between duple & triple subdivisions)

Every note must have its full value (think of it being weighty)

Listen to recordings until you can hear the piano part in your head

II: Think in 1 to further emphasize the downbeats & not let it get too cumbersome

III: Think in 6 because it's so slow

Cohler/Hodgkinson; Ongaku

Meyer/Duchable; Erato (contains only movement I)

Stoltzman/Goode; RCA Victor