Brahms: Sonates pour clarinette & piano

Heau, Florent, Zygmanowski, Patrick

ZZT 2030301

Brahms - the classic, the academic - was in fact a great discoverer in the realm of the musical language, a great progressive. Arnold Schoenberg The tradition of the duet for clarinet and piano begins with the first German romantic musicians: Webern composes in 1816 a Grand duo concertant, opus 48; Mendelssohn wrote in 1823, aged 14, a sonata; Schumann published the Phantäsiestücke in 1849. It was then necessary to wait nearly half a century for a major composer to be interested again: in 1894 Brahms wrote the two sonatas opus 120, works of maturity. It is the meeting of clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld that will convince Brahms of the extensive resources of the clarinet. From this collaboration will be born trio op.114, the quintet op.115 and the 2 sonatas op.120 that Mühlfeld premiered on January 7, 1895 in Vienna. The thematic work unfolds itself with such obvious ease that it goes unnoticed. "Only the poetic content seems to have counted" notes Claude Rostand. Both scores leave no virtuosity: they are works written for oneself, like the slips of a diary. Sonata No. 1 is a major masterpiece of exceptional melodic freedom. Sonata No. 2 is part of the same poem and ends with a theme and variation, a technique so dear to Brahms in his chamber music.

CD x 1

Zig Zag Territoires

18.09.17

3760009291249