Brahms: Trio Op. 114. Robert & Clara Schumann: Romances

Featuring

Tabea Zimmermann
Javier Perianes
Jean-Guihen Queyras
Johannes Brahms
Robert Schumann
Clara Schumann

Joseph Joachim

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Compositional Technique

The F.A.E. Sonata is based on a musical encryption: three notes (F-A-E) signifying 'Frei, aber einsam' (free, but alone), a motif frequently used by Joseph Joachim and Johannes Brahms.

Instruments

The viola versions of Brahms's Clarinet Trio and Clarinet Sonatas were created for pragmatic reasons, such as allowing Joseph Joachim and Clara Schumann to hear them in Mühlfeld's absence or to increase sales.

Composer's Artistic Vision

The composers on this album shared aesthetic convictions, including a belief in 'poetic' music that seeks hidden truth, a rejection of programmatic music, and the idea of chamber music as a realm of intimacy.

Composer Biography

Robert Schumann, a composer featured on this album, famously praised the young Johannes Brahms in his journal, writing: 'Visit from Brahms. A genius.'

Composition History

Johannes Brahms's Clarinet Trio Op. 114 was inspired by the 'exquisite clarinet playing' of Richard Mühlfeld, the principal clarinettist of the Meiningen court orchestra.

Composition History

The F.A.E. Sonata, a collaborative work on this album, was written by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Albert Dietrich (a composer who studied with Schumann) as a playful challenge for violinist Joseph Joachim.

Composer Biography

Clara Schumann, a composer and pianist on this album, once believed women should not compose, writing in her diary in 1839: 'A woman must not desire to compose - not one has been able to do it...'