As well as Tchaikovsky, I've been spending the week with Mozart and Brahms. The 18th Austrian master has beguiled me with his piano sonatas... like his symphonies they act as as biography in music, bearing the hallmarks of location, time and utility. Christian Blackshaw starts a journey through the lot
at Wigmore in January. And then Brahms took over. I've been writing liner notes for a new recording of the F minor Piano Quintet - an ambitious and often aggressive work - and the Clarinet Quintet. Richard Mühlfeld (pictured left) must have been an extraordinary musician. In 1891, when he and Brahms met, the German-born composer wrote not only this great autumnal quintet - gently rocking between major and minor tonalities - but also the trio. So good was their working relationship that Brahms not only wrote two sonatas for Mühlfeld, but he gave the clarinettist all the royalties from performances of the works written for him, as well as his pianist's fee whenever they performed the pieces together. After publication, Brahms handed over the manuscripts of both sonatas. Oh to have heard him play...
