This recording presents some of the last music composed by Johannes Brahms: his two Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano op. 120 (1894) and his Sechs Klavierstücke op. 118 (1893), performed on instruments close to what Brahms and his contemporaries are known to have used. Clarinettist Lorenzo Coppola plays a B-flat clarinet made by Schwenk and Seggelke in Bamberg in 2001 after a Bärmann-system instrument made by Georg Ottensteiner in Munich in 1875. Andreas Staier plays on an original Steinway and Sons piano made in New York in 1875, from the Maene collection in Ruiselede, Belgium.

Without the talents of clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld (1856–1907), Brahms perhaps would have retired from composing after completing his String Quintet in G, Op. 111 in the summer of 1890. Mühlfeld was appointed solo clarinet in the Meiningen Court Orchestra in 1879, thanks to a recommendation from Richard Wagner, and he quickly became one of the ensemble’s most admired musicians. Brahms first heard Mühlfeld in the autumn of 1881, when he performed his second piano concerto with the Meiningen orchestra, but it was during a week-long visit to Meiningen in 1891 that Brahms became intimately acquainted with the clarinettist’s exceptional talents, requesting private performances of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A major (K581) and both clarinet concertos by Weber.Footnote ¹ Brahms was so inspired by Mühlfeld’s artistry that he took up composing once again, penning four chamber music masterpieces featuring the clarinet: the Trio for Clarinet, Violoncello and Piano op. 114 (1891), the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings op. 115 (1891) and the two Sonatas for Clarinet and Piano op. 120 (1894). One even wonders whether Brahms’s other late works without clarinet, such as the Sechs Klavierstücke op. 118, would have existed had it not been for Mühlfeld’s musical persuasion.

Liszt is said to have compared Mühlfeld’s tone to the sensation of biting into a ripe peach. Unfortunately, Mühlfeld’s playing was never captured on recordings, which might have allowed us to better understand the meaning of Liszt’s enigmatic description. Mühlfeld’s clarinets, however, are preserved in the Meiningen Museum. They were made by the Munich builder Georg Ottensteiner (1815–1879), according to a model invented in collaboration with clarinettist Carl Bärmann (1810–1885). Ottensteiner’s design is a surprising blend of tonal conservatism and mechanical modernity. Because they are made of boxwood, rather than heavier cocus wood, ebony or grenadilla, they conserve some of the gentle qualities of earlier models. But they are also highly mechanized, with a keywork at least as generous as on clarinets today, including extensions to allow use by alternate fingers and duplicate keys to play the same note on both right and left hand – very useful in complex passages.

This is not the first recording of Brahms’ clarinet works on historical instruments. In 1989, Keith Puddy recorded the two sonatas on Mühlfeld’s own clarinets, following concerts on the instruments in the Meiningen museum with Malcolm Martineau playing an 1881 Bechstein piano.Footnote ² In the same year, Alan Hacker recorded the Trio op. 114 and both sonatas on mid-nineteenth-century English cocus wood Albert-system clarinets, with Richard Burnett playing an 1866 London-made Erard piano.Footnote ³ In 2004, Eric Hoeprich recorded the Quintet op. 115 with the London Haydn Quartet, playing a reproduction of Mühlfeld’s Ottensteiner clarinet in A made by Schwenk and Seggelke, similar to the instrument used by Coppola.Footnote ⁴

The sound Coppola coaxes from his instrument is captivating, and his intonation is flawless. One would hesitate to describe his tone as voluptuous, in the same way that some modern clarinets can be, as it is rather compact, even small. Coppola exploits these gentler qualities of the instrument, and his mastery of pianissimi that melt into near silence, for example in in bars 94–95 and 104–105 of the opening movement of op. 120, no. 1, creates a hushed sense of expectation preceding the climaxes that follow. Coppola’s tone, however, can become bold and even strident, especially in the upper register. Mühlfeld is reported to have used vibrato, but Coppola does not – nor did Puddy, Hacker or Hoeprich, for that matter.

Staier’s ability to paint vivid contrasts is a perfect match for Coppola’s approach. The Steinway allows him to generate a powerful sound while at the same time creating a light and clear texture when desired, for example, in the leggiero principal theme of the final movement of the first sonata. His rolled chords in the right hand on the first beats of the tranquillo coda (bars 162–165) of the E-flat Sonata’s opening movement are magical.

From the entrance of the clarinet in op. 120, no. 1, Coppola’s penchant for interpreting Brahms’s bar-long slurs as short, clipped gestures becomes evident. Staier provides the necessary forward drive in such passages, and his rolled forte chord at the beginning of bar 25 is highly dramatic. This is not to say that Coppola cannot use a liquid legato when he so desires; his octave written C’s in bar 149 of the opening movement of the E-flat Sonata are smoother than almost any performance on modern instruments.

Coppola and Staier favour rather fast tempi; the second movement of op. 120, no. 1 comes across as a true Andante. The middle section of the third movement of the same sonata, however, seems a bit breathless. The Andante con moto finale of op. 120, no. 2 strikes the perfect balance between reflection and forward movement, allowing both musicians to play the dotted phrases in the first variation (bars 29–42) with unaffected ease.

Coppola can produce a big trumpet-like sound – for example in the repeated minims in the finale of the F minor Sonata. His energy is remarkable, but one sometimes gets the impression that he is forcing the instrument, resulting in a more diffuse sound and excessive air escaping from around his embouchure. This extraneous sound (like the key noise picked up by the microphones) is not entirely disagreeable, and in many places only adds to the excitement, as if Coppola was stretching the expressive possibilities of his instrument to the absolute limits. There is only one phrase (which unfortunately repeats numerous times) where Coppola’s abundant energy results in a lack of technical clarity: in the quavers of the principal theme of the second movement of the E-flat Sonata (an admittedly difficult passage on Ottensteiner clarinets).

Staier rounds out the disc with the Sechs Klavierstücke op. 118. As is the case in the clarinet sonatas, he favours somewhat rapid tempi, his piano allowing him a clarity not easily obtained on more recent instruments. This is particularly apparent in the staccato main theme of the Ballade, no. 3. Staier nicely exploits the richly vocal middle register of his instrument, especially in the Intermezzo, no. 2 and the Romance, no. 5. The overtones generated by the 1875 Steinway are impressively complex in the final chords of the Intermezzo, no. 4. In the Intermezzo, no. 6, the una corda passage in left hand beginning in bar 5 is infinitely more mysterious than in most performances on more recent instruments.

It is only natural that we are interested in attempts to recreate Mühlfeld’s sound and performance style, as his playing was at least partially responsible for so much of Brahms’s mature music. It is therefore all the more valuable that we now have several recordings of Brahms’s chamber music with clarinet played by different performers, in order to give us an idea of the expressive range possible on instruments of the period.