Brahms had already decided to retire as a composer when, on a journey to Meiningen in 1891, he was inspired and challenged by clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld’s beautiful playing. The two Sonatas, Op.120are part of a late flowering that resulted in some of Brahms’s finest chamber music. Brahms himself explored these pieces beyond the clarinet, and Karl-Heinz Schütz’s arrangements are based on the composer’s own alternative versions, seeking out the ideal of two equally matched instruments in constant dialogue. Also included is a selection of ‘songs without words’, further expanding the flute repertoire with arrangements of these much-loved Lieder.
