WINIFRED SMALL (violin)
MAURICE COLE (pianoforte)
Brahms's last group of chamber works in which the clarinet plays a leading part, was due to the composer's great admiration for the beautiful playing of Miihlfeld, the principal clarinettist of the famous Meiningen Orchestra, of which von Bülow was conductor. The two sonatas, in F minor and E flat, for clarinet and piano (also arranged by the composer for viols and piano, and equally adaptable for violin and piano, as in the present broadcast) show Brahms's genius in its full glory.
Speaking of the first movement of the E flat sonata, Professor Tovey has well said that ' players who cannot make of this movement one of the most mellow products of all chamber music should leave Brahms alone.' The second movement is a dramatic and expressive scherzo, and the third movement, the finale, a fine set of variations on a theme in slow time.