Clarinet Trio, in A minor Op.114 - Brahms 'Marlboro Ensemble'

Composition Year: 1891 Summer, Ischl
First Performance: 1891-12-12 - Berlin, Saal der Singakademie Richard Mühlfeld (clarinet), Robert Hausmann (cello), Composer (piano)
Dedication: Richard Mühlfeld
Performers: Marlboro Ensemble
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00:01 1. Allegro
07:51 2. Adagio
15:22 3. Andantino grazioso
19:48 4. Allegro
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Work:
The Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114, is one of four chamber works composed by Johannes Brahms featuring the clarinet as a primary instrument. It was written in the summer of 1891 in Bad Ischl for the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld and first performed privately on 24 November 1891 in Meiningen and publicly in Berlin on 12 December that year. It is considered by scholars as part of a rebirth for the composer, who in 1890 declared his String Quintet in G major to be his final work.

General
The work calls for clarinet, piano, and cello, and is one of the very few in that genre to have entered the standard repertoire.
It was written for clarinet in A, which can also be substituted by a viola.
The overall mood of the piece is sombre, but includes both romantic and introspective qualities. Music historians and scholars have admitted that the trio is "not among the most interesting of his compositions" The work incorporates a considerable amount of arpeggio patterns in its theme, complemented by conversation-like passages in the upper register of the cello. Perhaps due to this lack of interesting material, Op. 114 has been overshadowed by another one of Brahms' chamber works written for Mühlfeld: the Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115.
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However, it is very clear in the music that Brahms absolutely adored the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, and that this adoration made its way into the trio. Eusebius Mandyczewski, a scholar and friend of Brahms, wrote of the trio that "It is as though the instruments were in love with each other."
de by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
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Wikipedia's biography: https://bit.ly/3kbFPC0
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ATTRIBUTION
Music contained in this video is licensed under: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 / Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum