Horn Trio in E-flat major, Op. 40

Brahms wrote this trio in the Black Forest in the spring of 1865, just weeks after his mother died before he could reach her bedside, and the grief saturates every page. The work journeys through pastoral tenderness, a galloping scherzo, and a slow third movement marked 'Adagio mesto' (sorrowful) that many regard as Brahms's most heartfelt elegy, before the finale breaks loose with exuberant hunting calls and drives to a triumphant, full-force closing chord. What makes it still stranger and more personal is Brahms's insistence on writing for the old-fashioned natural horn, the valveless instrument his father had taught him as a boy, whose rounded, slightly melancholic timbre he loved above all others.

What to listen for

In the slow third movement, the piano opens alone in its lowest register with rolled, tolling chords, and when horn and violin finally enter together they share a winding, grief-laden melody that seems unable to find rest. Near the end of that movement, listen for the moment the mood quietly lifts: a folk tune believed to have been sung to Brahms by his mother slips in, and seconds later the finale seizes that same melody, speeds it up, and the horn transforms it into a joyful hunting call. The finale also hides a characteristically Brahmsian rhythmic trick where violin and horn divide each bar into two pulses while the piano simultaneously divides it into three, creating a gentle push-and-pull you can feel even before you consciously hear it.

Recommended recording

The recording by Itzhak Perlman, Daniel Barenboim, and Dale Clevenger is often cited as a benchmark of warmth and dramatic sweep for this work.

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