Progetto Martha Argerich

italiano

Works

Johannes Brahms

Four moments from op. 119

 

Johannes Brahms bade farewell to the piano in four series of short pieces, all composed in 1892 and published in 1892-93 with the opus numbers 116, 117, 118 and 119. Exactly forty years had passed since the publication (1853) of his first piano work, the monumental Sonata, Op. 1, and a whole world of changes had taken place. The four Klavierstücke (piano pieces), Op. 119, like the pieces included in the other series, decisively demonstrate the composer’s determination to immerse himself in a wholly intimate creative atmosphere that is expressed through musical gestures dominated by modesty and sobriety. Taken all together, the four Klavierstücke, Op. 119, do not last even fifteen minutes, but they are wondrously inventive and contain within them a whole musical universe. The tone is nearly always meditative and familiar, with the sole exception of the final Rhapsody (Allegro risoluto) in E-flat Major – the most extended piece in the series – which seems to reacquire the heroic, convulsive manner of the agitated Ballade, Op. 79, No. 1, that Brahms had written thirteen years earlier.

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Intermezzo op. 113 n.1
Intermezzo op. 113 n.2
Intermezzo op. 113 n.3
Rapsodia op.113 n.4

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