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Click on the Cd Cover to go to their Summit Recordings Page to purchase the CD.
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| In 1890, three years after completing his final orchestral work, the Concerto in A Minor, Op.102 for violin, cello, and orchestra, Brahms announced to his friends that he was through with composing. From now on, he said, he would attend only to a few unfinished pieces and throw out the scraps. The end of his life was at hand, and he aimed to depart this world in an organized‹one might say typically Brahmsian‹way, with not one loose thread hanging.But Brahms didn't count on the clarinetist Richard Muhlfeld, the surprising muse whose sweet, rich sound captivated the composer at a performance by the Meiningen orchestra in March of 1891. After proclaiming Muhlfeld "the greatest wind player alive," Brahms took on two projects. The first was predictable: the writing of his will, a major piece of housekeeping in which (among other things) he bequeathed his substantial collection of music manuscripts to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. The second, unexpected project was a vehicle for Mühlfeld, the Trio in A Minor, Op.114, for clarinet, cello, and piano, composed during June and July at Bad Ischl and first performed in Meiningen November 24, 1891, with Muhlfeld, cellist Robert Hausmann, and Brahms himself at the piano. The public premiere took place less than three weeks later in Berlin, on a concert that also included the brand-new Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, Op.115. Obviously, Brahms's plan to chart his creative life all the way to the library had backfired. Clarinetists occasionally lament the lack of a Brahms clarinet concerto, but Muhlfeld appeared too late. In his "late, late maturity" the composer dwelled in a garden of intimate forces: chamber, vocal, and solo keyboard. From the Clarinet Trio to his final work (the Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op.122), Brahms celebrated the power of the individual voice. Following the Clarinet Trio, he wrote four solo piano cycles (Opp.116-119), which the critic Eduard Hanslick aptly termed "monologues." Brahms himself described Op.117, No.1 (in E-flat) as "the lullaby of my sorrows." But once he had exhausted his lone piano voice, Brahms turned again to the clarinet. | MP3.com CD: BRAHMS TRIO -  buy it!
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| MP3.com CD: BRAHMS TRIO - buy it!
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| MP3.com CD: BRAHMS TRIO - buy it!
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