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Brahms - Clarinet Sonatas

£12.69

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Label: BIS

Cat No: BIS2557

Barcode: 7318599925578

Format: Hybrid SACD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Chamber

Release Date: 7th January 2022

Works

Brahms, Johannes

Clarinet Sonata no.1 in F minor, op.120 no.1
Clarinet Sonata no.2 in E flat major, op.120 no.2
Violin Sonata no.2 in A major, op.100 (arr. Michael Collins for clarinet)

Artists

Michael Collins (clarinet)
Stephen Hough (piano)

Works

Brahms, Johannes

Clarinet Sonata no.1 in F minor, op.120 no.1
Clarinet Sonata no.2 in E flat major, op.120 no.2
Violin Sonata no.2 in A major, op.100 (arr. Michael Collins for clarinet)

Artists

Michael Collins (clarinet)
Stephen Hough (piano)

About

Friends of long standing as well as regular partners in chamber music, Michael Collins and Stephen Hough bring their combined musical insights and expertise to bear on Johannes Brahms’s Sonatas for clarinet and piano. Together with the composer’s Trio for clarinet, cello and piano and Clarinet Quintet, the sonatas are among the most treasured works in the repertoire of the instrument – but it is partly down to good luck that we have them at all. When Brahms in 1891 heard the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, principal clarinet of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, he had already announced his retirement. He was enraptured by Mühlfeld’s playing and its vocal qualities, however, and made a ‘comeback’: during the following couple of years he composed all four of his clarinet works.

These were written especially for Mühlfeld, whose spirit does seem to pervade the two sonatas – we hear an unusually sunny and lyrical Brahms, with plenty of opportunity to sing for both instruments. When the sonatas were published, they appeared with alternative viola parts to replace the clarinet, and soon violin versions prepared by the composer were also brought out. For the opening work on the disc, Michael Collins has therefore taken a leaf out of Brahms’s book, by adapting the composer’s Violin Sonata no.2, another late work. The amount of adaptation needed is small: a lot of the violin writing fits the clarinet well, and the sonata shares much of the songlike quality of the two ‘real’ clarinet sonatas.

Sound/Video

Paused

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01 - Sonata No. 2 in A major for violin and piano, Op... - I. Allegro amabile.wav
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02 - Sonata No. 2 in A major for violin and piano, Op... - II. Andante tranquillo - Vivace - Andante
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03 - Sonata No. 2 in A major for violin and piano, Op... - III. Allegretto grazioso quasi Andante
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04 - Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1 - I. Allegro appassionato
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05 - Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1 - II. Andante un poco adagio
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06 - Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1 - III. Allegretto grazioso
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07 - Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 120 No. 1 - IV. Vivace
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08 - Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 120 No. 2 - I. Allegro amabile
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09 - Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 120 No. 2 - II. Allegro appassionato
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10 - Sonata No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 120 No. 2 - III. Andante con moto - Allegro

Reviews

Hough is such an extraordinarily thoughtful and sensitive pianist that it’s its own reward to hear him in this glorious music. I love how delicately he renders the descending lines in the third movement of the First Sonata (at 1'37"), for example, so they fall like raindrops. ... Even if you already have Collins’s first rate Chandos disc, this beautifully recorded BIS CD is a worthy investment, not least for the exceptionally successful arrangement of the A major Violin Sonata. Andrew Farach-Colton

Gramophone February 2022