Brahms: Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40 (Version for Piano Trio) The Dartington Trio

• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897): Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40 (Version for Piano Trio):
• 1 Brahms: Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40 (Version for Piano Trio): I. Andante 07:58
• 2 Brahms: Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40 (Version for Piano Trio): II. Scherzo. Allegro 07:43
• 3 Brahms: Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40 (Version for Piano Trio): III. Adagio mesto 08:58
• 4 Brahms: Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40 (Version for Piano Trio): IV. Finale. Allegro con brio 07:10
• Total Runtime 31:49

Info for Brahms: Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40 (Version for Piano Trio)

The Horn Trio, Op 40, is one of those chamber works (Mozart’s so-called ‘Kegelstatt’ Trio, K498, for piano, clarinet and viola is another) which invents an entirely new medium and, at a stroke, raises it to a level that no later composer could reasonably hope to surpass. In his youth Brahms had himself played the horn, and his lifelong fondness for the instrument can be heard in such famous orchestral moments as the opening bars of the Piano Concerto No 2, or the alpine theme that crowns the slow introduction to the finale of the first symphony. Despite the fact that valve horns had been in use since the 1830s, Brahms always retained a preference for the more rounded tone of the natural horn, or Waldhorn. In 1860 he completed a set of four songs for female voices with an instrumental ensemble consisting of two horns and harp. The last song, an evocative setting of a text from Ossian’s Fingal, seems to have rubbed off on the opening movement of the Trio Brahms composed in 1865 while staying in forest surroundings outside Baden-Baden. The two pieces are in a similar slow tempo, and have the same dactylic rhythm.

The Horn Trio is, in fact, Brahms’s only chamber work to begin without a sonata-form movement. Instead, it alternates two ideas in rondo fashion, the second of them slightly more agitated than the first. One consequence of this unorthodox beginning is that the Scherzo, rather than being a sectional piece, is a through-composed sonata form, so that in a sense one could say that Brahms is reverting to what in the Baroque period was known as the ‘church sonata’ design, in which slow and quick movements alternated in pairs.

Frances Mason, violin
Michael Evans, violoncello
John Bryden, piano

Digitally remastered by Sean Murray for EMEC HR Remastered

The Dartington Trio
was formed in 1980 from the larger Dartington Ensemble, maintaining a continuous thread of Dartington's public music-making set for so many years by the Dartington String Quartet. As well as giving concerts in a wide range of venues including many schools in South Devon, the Trio has made highly acclaimed recordings on the Hyperion label of works by Martinu, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and Frank Bridge.

Booklet for Brahms: Horn Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 40 (Version for Piano Trio)