Classical Music | Music for Duo

Recorded on 01/27/2016, uploaded on 08/26/2016

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

This piece is a dramatic work; its demeanor is at times audacious and spectacular, and at other times somber and heart-wrenching. The violin bursts in at the top of the first movement Allegro, as the piano anxiously searches, almost as if we are joining a work already in progress. The Adagio that follows features a cavatina for the violin, both introspective and nostalgic.  The third movement (Un poco presto e con sentiment, meaning “Upbeat, and with feeling”) is mercurial; Brahms’ good friend Clara Schumann said this movement was “like a beautiful girl toying with her lover.”  The final movement begins with the violinist boldly playing double stops, followed by a sweeter second theme.  The music that follows is best summed up by Walter Frisch, who wrote in “The Compleat Brahms” that “the pent-up energies of the preceding movements seem to be fully unleashed.”              Notes by Dave Kopplin

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.