arranged in 1986 by Luciano Berio (Oneglia, Italy, 1925 – Rome, 2003)

Luciano Berio was one of the leading figures of avant-garde music in the 1950s and '60s, but he also had a very strong attachment to the past, even to the Romanticism with which the new-music movement had supposedly broken. He was not alone in the avant-garde generation to reconnect with tradition in this way. In 1982, his fellow musical innovator György Ligeti composed a Horn Trio, adopting the instrumentation of a celebrated chamber piece by Brahms, to honor the 150th anniversary of the German composer's birth. Four years later, Berio orchestrated the first of Brahms's two clarinet sonatas, fulfilling a commission from the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

This artistic encounter between two composers separated by time and space, and completely different in their musical personalities, resulted in the “Brahms Clarinet Concerto” the composer never wrote. Clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld might have hoped for such as work, after receiving a trio, a quintet and two sonatas from the Master. Brahms had come out of self-imposed retirement from composition to make these invaluable additions to the clarinet repertoire, inspired by Mühlfeld's artistry.

Berio lovingly transcribed the piano part of the F-minor sonata for a classical orchestra with double woodwinds, contrabassoon, three horns, two trumpets, a single trombone, timpani, and strings. He only added a few introductory measures to the first and second movements, but otherwise made few changes to the music.

In the first movement, the uniquely Brahmsian combination of rhythmic tension and expansive, lyrical melodic writing is on full display. The second movement is a delicate and gentle instrumental song; the third a graceful intermezzo that takes a wistfully nostalgic look at the Ländler, the Austrian folk dance that inspired so many composers from Haydn to Brahms and later Mahler. Switching to the major mode, the finale follows classical rondo form, filled out with the rich harmonic language characteristic of late Brahms.

While the sound and technical possibilities of the clarinet were the main source of inspiration for the two sonatas, Brahms also allowed performance on the viola, whose range is almost identical to that of the clarinet. Berio retained these two options in his orchestral version, occasionally making minor adjustments depending on whether the solo part is played on clarinet or viola.

Notes By Peter Laki