Cellists are fortunate indeed to have their two Brahms sonatas, both masterpieces in their genre. So one can, and certainly will, ask why we need or indeed dare to 'borrow' the G major violin sonata and the two clarinet sonatas and thereby make our two into five. Questions that arise: Are we just attempting to reproduce the original work with the necessary pitch and register changes? Can this be an opportunity to give another significance, even a second parallel existence, to a beloved work of art? The answer to the first question must be 'no', because such a treatment would simply be arrogant and pointless. To the second, I hope, listeners can agree that the two clarinet sonatas and the G major violin sonata lose nothing in these 'translations' and even gain a great deal of new and perhaps unexpected depth and character.

Hallé and Sir Mark Elder are reunited with Sunwook Kim in long awaited studio recordings of repertoire with which he won the Leeds Piano Competition. London-based Sunwook Kim came to international recognition when he won the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006, aged just 18, becoming the competition's youngest winner for 40 years, as well as its first Asian winner. His performance of Brahms's Concerto No. 1 with Hallé and Sir Mark Elder in the competition's finals attracted unanimous praise from the press. Since then, he has established a reputation as one of the finest pianists of his generation, appearing as a concerto soloist with many of the world's leading orchestras and in major recital venues in London, across Europe and in Japan. Sunwook Kim has also enjoyed an ongoing relationship with the Hallé Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder, performing in a variety of repertoire across a number of seasons. Here they return to Brahms' two masterworks; pieces which were separated by two decades and which display very differing musical and emotional outlooks, from the more ardent First to the more rhapsodic Second. Elder and Kim perform the Second Concerto together at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester in April 2017.

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A live recording togeteher with Uppsala Chamber Orchestra, violinist Nils-Erik Sparf and conductor Paul Mägi, from a concert in the Uppsala Concert & Congress in May 2010, published in the autumn 2016 at Swedish Society/Naxos. To perform the Brahms Violin Concerto with "their" own orchestra was a favorite project for violinist Nils-Erik Sparf, a concert that he lived with for many years. "It is a privilege to take this favorite romantic concerts in his hand," says Nils-Erik Sparf.Sparf comes from a musician's family in Rättvik, Dalarna. His father, Sparf-Anders, was a strong profile and renowned fiddler. Both folk and classical music played in the home. Since childhood listened Nils-Erik often the Brahms violin concerto by contemporary masters such as Oistrach, Heifetz or Schneiderhan.His musical through and touching performance in unique interpretations has resulted in a series of awards and prizes. In January 2004, he received the medal "litteris et artibus" from King Carl XVI Gustaf's hand and in November 2013 the Royal Swedish Academy Interpretpris.Nils-Erik Sparf employee of Music in Uppland as concert master in Uppsala Chamber Orchestra and as a member of the Uppsala Chamber Soloists. He has been concertmaster of the Royal Opera and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and is represented on numerous recordings. 2013 was Mozart's five violin concertos out with Sparf as soloist and leader of the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra.

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In November 1949, at age eight, Idil Biret entered the studios of ORTF in Paris and made her first recordings. In the following decades she made over eighty LPs and CDs – released on ten record labels – and many additional recordings for radio and television around the world. These included the complete piano works of Brahms, Chopin and Rachmaninov, as well as the Etudes of Ligeti. The Idil Biret Archive (IBA) is bringing together and issuing as many of her recordings as possible on both CD and digitally. The IBA is distributed worldwide by Naxos.

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Genuin presents their sixth release of the Munich Piano Trio featuring Tilo Widenmeyer who is also a member of the Melos Quartet. Founded in 1982 they are one of the most active and sought-after German chamber music ensembles. They have toured throughout Europe North America and Asia performing in some of the world's most famous venues.

The works on Sofya Gulyak's Piano Classics Johannes Brahms release span the composers' lifetime. The Handel Variations brim with energy, pianistic brilliance and youthful pathos, the two Rhapsodies Op. 79 are serious and dramatic, the Fantasien Op. 116 breathe the air of melancholy. Winner of the prestigious 2009 Leeds Competition (the first woman to do so in it's history), Ms. Gulyak has since performed at the world's most important venues. Her first CD, works of Rachmaninov, received international praise, including 5 Stars in French Diapason and "stunning debut album" from Gramophone.

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Although Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) has a reputation as a composer of serious, large-scale, complex music, many of his best known and most commercially successful works are actually small in scale and were written for the booming contemporary market of domestic music-makers. Among these latter compositions many of his piano works may be numbered, although many pose formidable challenges for the amateur pianist. Between his powerful Piano Sonata No 1 in C major, Op 1 (1852) and the Eleven Chorale Preludes for organ, Op 122 (1896), Brahms wrote many keyboard pieces, the earliest of which on this selection is the Piano Sonata No 3 in F minor, Op 5 (1865)-from which the Andante espressivo is drawn-the latest his Piano Pieces, Op 119 (1893)-from which the first, second and third Intermezzos are taken. Brahms' abilities as a pianist were evident from his youth, and his approach to music was quite practical. In his teens, he investigated both serious and popular musical styles, making arrangements for his father's orchestra and playing piano in local dance halls. (The frequently told story that he was forced to play in brothels, although apparently originating with the composer himself, seems to have no foundation in fact.) Aged twenty he started touring as an accompanist and made important contacts in the musical world, meeting Robert and Clara Schumann, both of whom were highly influential on his life and career. His love for and devotion to Clara, herself an accomplished pianist, would last throughout his life. From the early 1860s, Brahms based himself in Vienna, so it's hardly surprising that the city's emblematic dance form, the waltz, should inspire him to compose several of his own. The delightful Sixteen Waltzes, Op 39 (1865) and the popular Liebeslieder [Love Song] Waltzes, Op 52 (1870)-later arranged for piano four-hands as Op 52a-rank among his most open-hearted contributions. Unlike some of his supporters, Brahms was certainly no musical snob, as his lifelong friendship with Johann Strauss II attests. Brahms once remarked that he would have given anything to have written The Blue Danube, and when Strauss' wife Adele asked Brahms to autograph her fan, he wrote a few notes from the iconic waltz with the words 'Alas, not by Brahms!' 1869 saw the publication of his hugely popular Hungarian Dances, for which Brahms, regarding them as arrangements rather than original compositions, did not assign an opus number. The year 1878 saw the publication of Brahms' Eight Pieces for piano, Op 76, a collection of capriccios and intermezzos that marks his increasing concentration on shorter, highly characterful works. The Seven Fantasias for piano, Op 116 (1892) were the first fruits of an amazing late flowering that continued with the Three Intermezzi for piano, Op 117 (1892), the Six Pieces for piano, Op 118 (1893) and the Four Pieces for piano, Op 119 (1893). With these remarkable miniatures, Brahms seems to summarize his entire compositional career, recalling both the muscular virtuosity of his earlier piano music, paying tribute to the character pieces of Couperin and Schumann, and perhaps even taking note of the 'Impressionist' piano music of Debussy though heard through a thoroughly Brahmsian filter.

The Uppsala Chamber Soloists are one of Sweden’s most eminent string ensembles, delving into Baroque, Viennese Classical, Romantic or new music, always with the same total control and stylistic sense. Just as the name implies, they are both chamber musicians and soloists.

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"•On their third recording for Gramola, Johannes Hiemetsberger and his Chorus sine nomine devote themselves to the German Requiem op. 45 by Johannes Brahms. • Nevertheless, both the work itself Mr. Hiemetsberger’s decision to record the composer’s own version for piano four-hands, which places greater emphasis on the choir, must be termed unconventional. _ • Founded by Johannes Hiemetsberger in 1991, the Chorus sine nomine ranks among Austria’s leading vocal enembles. "