Johannes Brahms Photo: Public Domain
This is a familiar sonata by Brahms. However it’s not one of his two cello sonatas, but his own transcription of his much loved Sonata for Violin and Piano Opus 78.
It was his friend Clara Schumann’s favourite and in a letter to Brahms she wrote: “I wish that the last movement would accompany me in my journey to the next world”, a wish that Brahms personally fulfilled at her funeral.
The principal theme of the last movement is Brahms’s melody from ‘Regenlied’ (Rain Song) of Opus 53.
Inbal Megiddo (cello) and Jian Liu (piano)
Recorded 1 May 2016, St Andrew's on the Terrace, Wellington by RNZ Concert.
Engineer: Graham Kennedy
