Under the direction of Johan Hock from Queen's College Chambers
Lecture Hall, Birmingham
The Grinke Trio:
Frederick Grinke (violin) ; Florence Hooton (violoncello) ;
Dorothy Manley (pianoforte)
With the exception of opera, Brahms excelled in every branch of musical composition. Of his many large-sized instrumental works, there are very few that cannot be described as masterpieces.
The three trios for piano, violin, and 'cello contain all Brahms's supreme qualities as a composer and remain three of the finest contributions to the literature of this particular branch of chamber music. No. 1, in B major, Op. 8, was originally published in 1854 and is, therefore, Brahms's first really ambitious work.
But in 1891 he published a revised version that, except for the scherzo, was virtually a new work. New thematic material was added to the principal theme of the three other movements and each movement reconstructed. The result is, as H. C. Coles points out, that ' in the progress of development the open countenance of youth becomes lined with the experience of age '.