Johannes Brahms: Three films (Part 1)

Three television programmes about the Brahms Violin and Viola Sonatas.
Part One: FAE Scherzo Violin Sonata No 1 Op 78
Part Two: Violin Sonatas No 2 Op 100 and No 3 Op 108
Part Three: Viola Sonatas Op 120 No 1 and Op 120 No 2
Each programme contains an introduction, shot on film (in Germany, Switzerland and Austria), describing some of the circumstances in which Brahms wrote these works which are performed complete by Pinchas Zukerman and Marc Neikrug.
The violin sonatas have long been thought of as pillars of German absolute music. The first and second are, however, full of direct personal statements and musical references that are closely connected with Brahms’s feelings for Clara Schumann and Hermine Spies. The first two programmes concentrate therefore on Brahms’s relationships with these two women and point to some of the musical references contained in the Sonatas, which would have been understood at the time only by them and by Brahms himself.
The third Violin Sonata, written, like the second, during Brahms’s three exceptionally fertile summers on the shores of Lake Thun, is the most abstract and systematically constructed of the three; it is, however, dedicated to Brahms’s friend, Hans von Bülow and reflects something of Brahms’s appreciation of von Bülow’s virtuosity as a pianist.
The third programme introduces the Opus 120 Viola Sonatas. Written originally for the clarinet and transcribed by Brahms himself at the time of their composition, they were inspired by his relationship with Richard Mühlfeld, the clarinettist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra.
They were written when Brahms had already twice decided that he would publish nothing more, only to find himself irresistibly drawn by the exceptional quality of Mühlfeld’s sound and his skill as a chamber music performer. Fired by his enthusiasm for Mühlfeld’s playing, Brahms not only wrote the Opus 120 Sonatas and arranged them for the viola, but actually went on a performance tour with Mühlfeld at the age of sixty-two, less than two years before he died.