Completely removed from the sophisticated hustle and bustle of the spa town of Baden-Baden, nestled in a modest home in the suburb of Lichtental close to the forest as he always did in summer, Johannes Brahms came up with the theme for the first movement of the Horn Trio on one of his beloved morning walks in the forest: a gentle circle first around the note F, then ever more circling in its melody. Later he would even lead a friend to the place where the sound of nature had caught him inside. The instruments that Brahms had learned as a child in Hamburg included the piano and cello as well as the French horn. It is no coincidence that Brahms continued to feature the horn very prominently in his music later on – it is not difficult to find corresponding passages in the symphonies in particular; but the early songs for women's choir, two horns and harp op. 17 should also be mentioned. It was his mother who loved Johannes' horn playing in particular. The question of the extent to which the death of the mother Christiane, who died in February 1865, actually influenced the composition of the Adagio movement for the horn trio a few months later keeps cropping up with strange persistence. However, it seems presumptuous to continue to rack one's brains here in Brahms' name. Mesto (sad) is written in the score, and that is how the movement sounds. And the whole trio is "an incomparable work of this chamber music genre, [that] floats in musical heaven," says György Ligeti.

Olivia Rose Francis

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Jul 3, 2025

Brahms · Symphoniker Hamburg

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