Cellists are fortunate indeed to have their two Brahms sonatas, both masterpieces in their genre. So one can, and certainly will, ask why we need or indeed dare to ‘borrow’ the G major violin sonata and the two clarinet sonatas and thereby make our two into five. Questions that arise: Are we just attempting to reproduce the original work with the necessary pitch and register changes? Can this be an opportunity to give another significance, even a second parallel existence, to a beloved work of art? The answer to the first question must be ‘no’, because such a treatment would simply be arrogant and pointless. To the second, I hope, listeners can agree that the two clarinet sonatas and the G major violin sonata lose nothing in these ‘translations’ and even gain a great deal of new and perhaps unexpected depth and character.
