The Clarinet Sonatas of Opus 120 (1894), which Johannes Brahms dedicated to the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, “the master of this beautiful instrument, in sincerely grateful remembrance,” are the fruit of a close friendship which helped the nearly sixty-year-old composer to rediscover both the instrument and his own dormant desire to compose at this late stage in his life. With their characteristically Viennese atmosphere, these valedictory sonatas - his last great works of chamber music - reflect at once the solid experience of a long career and the sheer delight of writing for pleasure. Forming a matched pair, complementary in tone and temperament, the F-minor Sonata with its somber and plaintive opening finds a counterweight in the gracious and gentle Sonata in E-flat major. In the hands of Jon Manasse and Jon Nakamatsu, this ravishing music receives a passionate and sensitively shaped reading.
