Brahms: Sonata in E flat Op.120/2 Allegro appassionato
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Biography
Clarinettists are particularly blessed among wind players to have the four great chamber works for the instrument written by Brahms, written at the very end of his life. Brahms followed all the great composers of the German-Austrian tradition in writing chamber music overwhelmingly for piano and stringed instruments because of their expressive potential. But in 1891 he heard the Meiningen court clarinettist, Richard M?hlfeld, and realised that he had previously overlooked an instrument (or perhaps a player) quite capable of the ranges of expression necessary for the dramatic conflict and reconciliation of musical ideas contained in his weightiest sonata forms. The four works - the Quintet with strings, the Trio with ''cello and piano, and the two sonatas - are certainly among his finest chamber works. The Sonata in E@ of 1894 is the last of the four and Brahms'' final utterance in sonata form.
