Brahms: Sonatas for Cello and Piano

Review: MusicWeb Internationel

Johannes Brahms
Sonata for Cello and Piano No 1 in e minor, Op 38
1. Allegro ma non troppo
2. Allegretto quasi Menuetto
3. Allegro

Sonata for Cello and Piano No 2 in F major, Op 99
4. Allegro vivace
5. Adagio affetuoso
6. Allegro passionato
7. Allegro molto

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano Op 120/2 in E-flat major (arr. Østerlind)
8. Allegro amabile
9. Allegro appassionato
10. Andante con moto – Allegro non troppo

Sonatas for cello and piano ©
Johannes Brahms’s father played the cello and passed his affection for the instrument down to his son. Later in life, Brahms claimed to have been a good enough cellist to negotiate Bernhard Romberg’s first cello concerto. But his most notable contributions to the cello world would take the form of two sonatas for the instrument separated by 21 years. In both cases, the string parts demonstrate Brahms’s technical understanding of the cello while the piano parts reflect the sort of music he liked to play on what became his instrument of choice.
In 1862, Brahms had visited Vienna, making contacts he sensed might prove useful after his looming return to Hamburg, where he expected to become director of the the Philharmonic Concerts. In the event, that job went to someone else and Brahms wound up staying in the Austrian capital. Here he encountered Josef Gänsbacher, a graduate lawyer who also sang, composed, played the cello and taught members of the Vienna Singakademie, of which Brahms would soon be appointed director.
Not only had Gänsbacher helped get Brahms the job, he had set his legal mind to securing the manuscript score to Schubert’s Der Wanderer for his colleague. Payback came in the form of Brahms’s ‘Sonata for Piano with Cello’ in E minor dedicated to Gänsbacher. When Brahms finished the score in 1863 and played it through privately with his colleague, it had three movements. Two years later, the composer returned to it, removing an Adagio and replacing it with a new finale. As published, therefore, the score contains no slow movement. Just as notable is the manner in which Brahms calls on his experience with both instruments to create an equitable texture, anchoring the conversation around the central tessitura of the cello, the less powerful of the two instruments. In some instances, both hands of the pianist sound above the cello while the latter instrument provides harmonic structure.

RELEASE DATE: MAY 2020

CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 875

EAN: 5709499875001