Respire #12 – Brahms

As Brahms himself stated in a letter penned at the end of the year 1891 to his publisher, Simrock about the concert given in Berlin on 12 December by the Joachim Quartet and the clarinet genius of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, Richard Mühlefeld: Clarinet Quintet in B minor: „I must report to you that Joachim has sacrificed the virginity of his Quartet to my newest things. Hitherto he has carefully protected the chaste sanctuary but now, in spite of all my protestations, he insists that I invade it with clarinet and piano.” The legendary violinist, József Joachim – Brahms’s fellow-musician and long-time friend – had staged exclusively string quartets with his quartet, but for the sake of Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet, he made an exception. The composition garnered great success with the audience (so much so that they gave an encore of the Adagio movement), and Brahms was mesmerised by Mühlefeld and would call him „nightingale of the orchestra or „Fräulein Klarinette” from then on. This time, the part of the clarinet will be played by Maxim Rysanov on the viola accompanied by four exceptional string players. The viola version was written by Brahms himself.

With consideration of the pandemic crisis, the number of concert tickets is limited so that the appropriate distance between the seats can be maintained.