This unassuming‐looking “Sonata for two pianos”, op. 34b represents a seminal work in Johannes Brahms’s output, as it became the op. 34 Piano Quintet – a work whose symphonic dimensions were one of the many precursors to Brahms finally facing up to the task of composing a symphony proper. • Brahms made his own duo arrangements of almost all his orchestral music, including that of St. Anthony (Haydn) Variations, op. 56b. • This is the first disc in a projected complete series of Brahms’s duo piano works, all to be recorded by the young Italian musicians Eleonora Spina and Michele Benignetti.
