for Viola and Piano-Brahms had already announced his 'retirement' from composition when in the spring of 1894 he played chamber music with the cellist Robert Hausmann and the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld. This encounter apparently renewed his enthusiasm for Mühlfeld?s much admired playing and inspired him to write two Clarinet sonatas in the summer of the same year. It remains unclear when exactly Brahms drafted Viola parts to his two sonatas. In any case the Viola and Clarinet versions of the works were first published by Simrock at the same time in 1895. Today there is no doubt about Brahms? authorship of the Viola parts. They include important differences fromthe Clarinet original in order to do justice to this string instrument.An important part of this edition is the extensive preface. Firstly it informs about the sonatas? origins their compositional process pre-publication performances their publication history as well as early reception. Truly remarkable is the unique Performance Practice Commentary. Here the editors start from the premise that already a few decades after Brahms' death a widening gulf developed between the composer's expectations and the performance practices of the early 20th century. On the basis of manifold sources which include memoirs by pupils and chamber music partners treatises and essays early instructive editions and historical recordings the editors deal with key issues in understanding Brahms' notation. By a section-by-section analysis of rhythm and timing dynamics and accentuation dots and strokes slurring and non legato Piano pedalling and overholding Piano arpeggiation and dislocation string instrument fingering string instrument harmonics and vibrato the editors provide an indispensable assistance for a historically informed interpretation of the works.At the same time the edition offers an exciting and often surprising insight into musical interpretation of the German Romantic Era in general.A pioneering Urtext editionWith an unmarked Urtext partWith a second part including fingering and bowing based on the practices of contemporaries of BrahmsWith an extensive Performance Practice

Élégie op. 44 for Viola and Piano-A precious gem of romantic Viola literature is now available in Henle quality. Thanks to the publisher’s good connections to Russian archives we were able to assess Glazunov’s autograph for the first timefor this first Urtext edition and uncover the discrepancies between the autograph and the first print. Written in 1893 for the Danish violist Franz Hildebrand the ?l?gie is one of the few originalworks of the 19th century for Viola and thus a welcome enrichment of the repertoire. Since the piece does not make any particularly high technical demands on the soloist the ?l?gie is ideally suited forteaching as well – and Tabea Zimmermann’s fingerings guarantee the best possible support.

arranged for Piano and Viola-Cesar Franck’s Sonata for Piano and Violin is one of the most treasured works in the Violin repertoire a masterpiece of cyclic form with a gracefulness and expressive force almost paradigmatic for the age of musical Romanticism. This work was composed in 1886 and was dedicated to the Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe.After Franck’s death in 1890 the original publisher of the Sonata the Parisian house Julien Hamelle announced an arrangement of the work for Viola but it has not been possible to locate any copy of this publication. The present arrangement for Viola is largely based on Jules Delsart’s arrangement for Piano and Cello the onlyversion of the Sonata which the composer authorized. However the Viola part here also adopts extensive passages in their original register or remains in the middle octave especially in those passages where the Cello lies two octaves beneath the Violin.Being set in the alto register the part thus lies between the other two string versions lending the Sonata a delightful hybrid hue beyond the brilliance of the Violin and the sonorousness of the Cello. The Piano part has been left intact and is thus identical to that of the original version.The edition is rounded off by an informative text on the genesis and reception history of the Sonata (Ger/Fr/Eng).

For Viola and Piano this is the composer's first opused work. Premiered at the Wigmore Hall in July 1959 by Cecil Aronowitz and Margaret Kitchen.Wood: In 1957 I knew I had newly discovered the music of Schoenberg and hispupils and I knew at once that they were to show me the way forward for my music; as indeed they have ever since. The revelation was primarily an emotional experience for me and however imperfectly their influence wasreceived it was obviously reflected in the all-out chromaticism (new for me then) in the many chains of twelve notes or lesser chromatic formations (which do not here amount to serial working and have only rarely done sosince) in the characteristic harmonic and rhythmic formations the wide and sometimes angular intervals of the melodies and in general the introverted romanticism. Anyway I knew then that this was the sort of music that Ihenceforth would want to write and so I called these Variations my Opus One.The declamatory Introduction leads into the Theme heard on the viola. Six Variations follow of which No.3 is the most violent and No.4 the mostsustainedly lyrical. The recitative-like sixth variation leads into the Finale a more extended movement. The Theme returning on the piano leads to a climax at which there is a citation from Beethoven’s C minor Variations forpiano. Then their characteristics sequence of chords is heard on the piano as an accompaniment to the final statement of my own theme on the viola in the closing bars of the work.