No, not the original version of the B major trio Op 8, mentioned in passing on today's BaL. I refer to the A major trio attributed to Brahms which was recorded by the Beaux Arts Trio and more recently in a 'complete trios' 3-CD set by the Gould Trio (plus horn and clarinet for Op40 and Op114).
Before buying the Gould set I think I'd heard it only once before, on R3 back probably in the 1970s. It then absolutely shouted to me that it was good mature Brahms, and reacquaintance hasn't changed my mind. Yet not only is it rarely met, it is pretty generally ignored by Brahms scholars.
Its history in brief is that it was published in 1938 from a 19th century MS discovered in Bonn, not in Brahms' hand, and with no title page or attribution. It was quickly labelled by its discoverers as being one of Brahms's many chamber works discarded as not being - in his view - fit for publication. But since then it hardly gets a mention in the Brahms literature! The 1980s Grove lists it as '?authentic' though. The MS has now disappeared.
One scholar who has strongly endorsed the attribution to Brahms is Malcolm MacDonald in his Master Musicians study. He notes that on blind listening anyone knowledgeable about classical music immediately spots it as Brahms, and that the difficulty for anyone arguing otherwise is putting forward another likely composer. He thinks the work comes after the B major, possibly as an 'Apollonian' twin to this 'Dionysian' Op 8, in the same relation as the G minor and A major piano quartets Op25 and 26.
Any boarders here who are acquainted with this work? Brahms or not? If not, who is the unknown genius who wrote it?
Before buying the Gould set I think I'd heard it only once before, on R3 back probably in the 1970s. It then absolutely shouted to me that it was good mature Brahms, and reacquaintance hasn't changed my mind. Yet not only is it rarely met, it is pretty generally ignored by Brahms scholars.
Its history in brief is that it was published in 1938 from a 19th century MS discovered in Bonn, not in Brahms' hand, and with no title page or attribution. It was quickly labelled by its discoverers as being one of Brahms's many chamber works discarded as not being - in his view - fit for publication. But since then it hardly gets a mention in the Brahms literature! The 1980s Grove lists it as '?authentic' though. The MS has now disappeared.
One scholar who has strongly endorsed the attribution to Brahms is Malcolm MacDonald in his Master Musicians study. He notes that on blind listening anyone knowledgeable about classical music immediately spots it as Brahms, and that the difficulty for anyone arguing otherwise is putting forward another likely composer. He thinks the work comes after the B major, possibly as an 'Apollonian' twin to this 'Dionysian' Op 8, in the same relation as the G minor and A major piano quartets Op25 and 26.
Any boarders here who are acquainted with this work? Brahms or not? If not, who is the unknown genius who wrote it?
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