Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)
Trio in A minor for clarinet, cello and piano, Op. 114
Quintet in B minor for clarinet and strings, Op. 115
Johannes Brahms was born on 7th May 1833 in the Gangeviertel district of
Hamburg, the son of a double-bass player and his wife, a seamstress seventeen
years her husband's senior. It was intended that the boy should follow his
father's trade and to this end he was taught the violin and cello, but his
interest in the piano prevailed, enabling him to supplement the family income by
playing in dockside taverns, while taking valuable lessons from Eduard Marxsen.
In 1853 Brahms embarked on a concert tour with the Hungarian violinist Eduard
Reményi, during the course of which he visited Liszt in Weimar, to no effect,
and struck up a friendship with the violinist Joseph Joachim, through whose
agency he met the Schumanns, established now in Düsseldorf. The connection was
an important one. Schumann was impressed enough by the compositions of his own
Brahms played to him to hail him as the long-awaited successor to Beethoven.
Schumann's subsequent break-down in February 1854 and ensuing insanity brought
Brahms back to Düsseldorf to help Clara Schumann and her young family. The
relationship with Clara Schumann, one of the most distinguished pianists of the
time, lasted until her death in 1896.
It was not until 1862, after a happy period that had brought him a temporary
position at the court of Detmold as a conductor and piano teacher, that Brahms
visited Vienna, giving concerts there and meeting the important critic Eduard
Hanslick, who was to prove a doughty champion, pitting Brahms against Wagner and
Liszt as a composer of abstract music, as opposed to the music-drama of Wagner
and the symphonic poems of Liszt, with their extra-musical associations. Brahms
finally took up permanent residence in Vienna in 1869, greeted by many as the
real successor to Beethoven, particularly after his first symphony, and winning
a similar position in popular esteem and similar tolerance for his notorious
lack of tact. He died in 1897.
There is a singular beauty in the music Brahms wrote towards the end of his
life, compositions of an autumnal melancholy to which the clarinet is
particularly well suited. The two clarinet sonatas, clarinet trio and clarinet
quintet were all written in the 1890s, directly inspired by the playing of
Richard Mühlfeld. In March 1891 Brahms visited Meiningen, where he was
particularly impressed by the playing of the principal clarinettist of the court
orchestra. Mühlfeld was a musician of some distinction. Trained as a violinist,
he had served in that capacity at Meiningen, before turning to the clarinet. At
the same time he was principal clarinettist at Bayreuth and in 1890 had been
given the additional appointment of music director of the court theatre. During
the summer, spent now habitually at the resort of Bad Ischl, Brahms wrote for
Mühlfeld the clarinet trio and clarinet quintet. The trio was first performed
in December 1891 with Brahms and Robert Hausmann, cellist in the Joachim
Quartet, which joined Mühlfeld on the same occasion for the first performance
of the quintet. The two sonatas were written in 1894.
The cello opens the Clarinet Trio, followed by the clarinet and piano, in an
introductory passage that sets the mood of the movement. The cello also
announces the E minor second subject and this thematic material is magically
developed in the central section of the movement. The D major Adagio, intense in
its concentration of musical material, is followed by a third movement A major
Andantino grazioso, that reminds the listener yet again of a friend of Brahms,
the musicologist Eusebius Mandyczewski, that the cello and clarinet sounded in
this work as if they were in love. The Trio ends with an energetic Finale in
sonata form that demonstrates yet again the ability of Brahms to conceal by his
own artistry the technical contrapuntal means used in passing to achieve the
results he desired.
The Clarinet Quintet opens with a dark-hued sonata form movement,
thematically introduced by the first violin, followed by the clarinet, which in
its turn introduces the second subject together with the second violin, while
the other instruments provide a contrapuntal accompaniment. The clarinet
announces the B major principal melody of the Adagio, imitated by the first
violin. A slower passage, in B minor, much embellished, leads through a passage
of enharmonic change to the return of the first theme. The third movement opens
with a theme marked Andantino played by the clarinet, followed by the first
violin. The Presto that follows develops this first theme, which returns as the
movement draws to a close. The last movement is in the form of a theme followed
by five variations with implications of the first three movements as the work
comes full circle.
Jozsef Balogh
Jozsef Balogh was born in Pécs in 1956, studying first in his native city
and then at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. In 1974 he was a prize-winner at the
Prague Concertino Festival and joined the orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera
in 1976, also serving as principal clarinet in the Hungarian Radio Orchestra.
Since. 1988 he has been on the teaching staff of the Budapest Academy. In 1989
he was awarded a scholarship to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra by Sir Georg
Solti. He has won various awards, including first prize at the Graz
International Competition in 1988, when he performed with his frequent
colleagues of the Danubius Quartet.
Jeno Jandó
Jeno Jandó was born in Pécs, in south Hungary, in 1952. He started to learn
the piano when he was seven and later studied at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of
Music under Katalin Nemes and Pál Kadosa, becoming assistant to the latter on
his graduation in 1974. Jandó has won a number of piano competitions in Hungary
and abroad, including first prize in the 1973 Hungarian Piano Concours and a
first prize in the chamber music category at the Sydney International Piano
Competition in 1977. In addition to his many appearances in Hungary, he has
played widely abroad in Eastern and Western Europe, in Canada and in Japan. He
has recorded all Mozart's piano concertos and sonatas for Naxos. Other
recordings for the Naxos label include the concertos of Grieg and Schumann as
well as Rachmaninov's Second concerto and Paganini Rhapsody and the complete
piano sonatas of Beethoven.
Csaba Onczay
The Hungarian cellist Csaba Onczay, awarded the Liszt Prize and winner of the
1973 Pablo Casals Competition in Budapest, followed by first prize in the Rio de
Janeiro Villa Lobos International Competition in 1976, was born in Budapest in
1946. A professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy in Budapest, he was trained as a
pupil of Antal Friss at the Budapest Academy, where he won the Grand Prize on
his graduation in 1970. He went on to distinguish himself in Andre Navarra's
master-class at Siena and continued his studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory
in Moscow. Csaba Onczay has enjoyed a busy career at home and abroad, throughout
Europe and in the United States of America. He has recorded for the Austrian and
the French radio, as well as for Hilversum, RIAS and RAI, while his performances
of the cello concertos of Lalo, Schumann and Lendvay have been released on the
Hungaroton label. Csaba Onczay plays a cello by Matteo Gofriller bought for him
by the Hungarian Government.
Danubius Quartet
The Danubius Quartet has won considerable acclaim since its establishment in
1983. With the violinists Adel Mikl6s and Maria Zs. Szab6, violist Cecilia
Bodolai and cellist Ilona Ribli, and the artistic direction of the distinguished
violinist Vilmos Tatrai, the quartet won awards at Trapani, Evian and Graz in
the earlier years of its foundation, and has recorded, among other works, the
String Quartet No.1 of Remenyi for Hungaroton, the complete String Quartets of
Villa-Lobos for Marco Polo and for Naxos the Mozart and Brahms Clarinet
Quintets. The Danubius Quartet has given recitals in Austria, Germany,
Yugoslavia, Italy, France and Switzerland and appeared at a number of
international festivals.