The five string quartets in this volume are generally designated as Beethoven's 'middle quartets,' even though stylistically they do not all build a closed unit. More than three years lie between the...
Johannes Brahms's late chamber works are surely among the most splendid music ever written for the clarinet. In the last years of his life, Brahms seems to have become weary of composing - but fortuna...
'In the evening we played Robert's E-flat major Quartet for the first time ... and I was once again truly delighted at this beautiful and so youthful work', enthused Clara Schumann in 1842. In prepara...
No serious musician and no serious orchestra can ignore this new Urtext edition of a major work of concerto literature, since the music text frequently diverges from that of previous editions. All the...
This Trio's unusual scoring for horn, violin and piano prompted speculation early on about a possible background to it that had no connection with music. Brahms's biographer Max Kalbeck saw in it a la...
Max Bruch composed these eight, highly romantic pieces for his son Max Felix, a talented clarinettist. In order to enable the work to be played more widely, Bruch arranged the clarinet part for violin...
Attention, string quartet players: the long wait is over! Henle launches its series of late Beethoven quartets with op. 131 in c sharp minor and op. 132 in a minor, using the definitive urtext from th...
In the Classical period, and well into the 19th century, piano trios were something of a musical fashion accessory. There was thus good reason for Beethoven also to engage with the genre, following th...
I've had to turn out a serenade on short order': these lines from Mozart to his father offer a glimpse into the everyday life of a composer dependent on patronage. Mozart was about to be married when...
The three Duos for Clarinet and Bassoon WoO 27 stylistically belong to Beethoven's earliest creative period. Due to their lively character, the skilful play with timbre, and the fact that they are not...
