Johannes Brahms had decided that his composing days were over, but then the retiree met Richard Muhlfeld, the clarinetist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra. Muhlfeld’s...

Johannes Brahms had decided that his composing days were over, but then the retiree met Richard Muhlfeld, the clarinetist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra. Muhlfeld’s playing so very much charmed the great composer that he once again put pencil to score paper- and did so again and again- and with magnificent results then and now! Here the two Clarinet Sonatas and the equally marvelous Clarinet Trio are heard for the first time in high-resolution sound in performances by Robert Oberaigner and Michael Schoch- joined by Norbert Anger on the cello. Muhlfeld’s supple and versatile sound must have been unprecedented- and may it have been precisely because he was an autodidact on the clarinet? In the two Clarinet Sonatas Brahms covers the instrument’s entire expressive range: cantabile song, autumnal melancholy, and excited “bleating.” Robert Oberaigner, the principal clarinetist of the Dresden State Orchestra, can do it all and enchantingly elicits these qualities from his instrument.