The interval of a descending third became a symbol of death in Brahms's late music, prominently featured in his Vier ernste Gesänge and several piano pieces.
Composition History
Brahms was inspired to compose his clarinet trio and quintet, Opp 114 & 115, and two sonatas (Op 120) after meeting clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld in 1891.
Composer Biography
Brahms composed these piano pieces during a period when many of his closest friends and family died, including his sister Elise and Elisabet von Herzogenberg in 1892, and Hans von Bülow in 1894.
Compositional Technique
Brahms associated the dark key of E flat minor with a particularly bleak mood, using it for the slow movement of his Op 40 horn trio and the last of the Op 118 piano pieces, both marked 'mesto' (sad).
Composer Biography
Brahms considered his life's work "more or less over" after his G major string quintet, Op 111, in 1890, and even wrote his will the following year.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Brahms once referred to the three Intermezzos, Op 117, as 'the cradle songs of my grief,' even quoting an old Scottish poem about weeping in the first piece.
Performer Biography
Stephen Hough, the pianist on this recording, was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2001 and made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2014.
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