Maxim Rysanov completes his survey of all Brahms’s chamber works to feature the viola.

On this companion CD to ONYX4033 he is joined by Alice Coote and Ashley Wass in the Two Songs Op.91, and takes the solo viola part – the clarinet role – in the Op.115 Quintet.

Richard Mühlfeld, the clarinettist for whom Brahms wrote his two sonatas and the quintet, managed to coax Brahms out of self-imposed retirement, and the result is the wonderful Indian summer of late chamber works. Joseph Joachim remarked that the clarinet parts would work well transcribed for viola. Brahms lavished much care on these arrangements, and they have entered the repertoire for the viola, in contrast to the transcriptions of the clarinet sonatas for violin, which remain virtually unperformed.

There may also have been a commercial motive in making such adaptations: the wider the market for chamber music, the more money the publisher and composer would receive. Either way, these transcriptions are valuable additions to the repertoire of the viola.