This recording of the complete chamber music works for clarinet by Johannes Brahms is presented with first rate interpreters: Laura Ruiz Ferreres, one of the...

This recording of the complete chamber music works for clarinet by Johannes Brahms is presented with first rate interpreters: Laura Ruiz Ferreres, one of the most gifted clarinettists of her generation, and pianist Christoph Berner. Internationally renowned cellist Danjulo Ishizaka and the Mandelring Quartet complete the superb line -up of instrumentalists for this recording.

At the end of his career, when he had already made his will, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was enthused by an instrument which was mainly familiar as an indispensable component of the romantic orchestra: the clarinet. However, ever since the days of Mozart or Carl Maria von Weber, chamber music for clarinet had been some what neglected. If it had not been for Richard Mühlfeld, the exceptionally gifted virtuoso of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, who was the source of inspiration for four chamber music works for clarinet between 1891 and 1894, Brahms might never again have written any music. Yet the melancholy North German composer always held a predilection for the noble middle register and the expressive "speaking" tone of the clarinet, of which he makes full use in all four works.Whilst the Trio Op. 114 with piano and cello has always been regarded as asubtly constructed work for connoisseurs, the Quintet Op. 115 with theaccompaniment of a string quartet is a miraculous blending of sound and passionate lyricism. Alongside the Clarinet Sonatas Op.120, these late chamber works with clarinet constituted a veritable renaissance which continues to thepresent day.