JOHANNES BRAHMS

The Bartholdy Quintett, recording on our partner label CAvi Music, release their album of Brahms’ two String Quintets. Attempting to emulate Schubert and Mozart, Brahms waited until a mature age to compose his second string quintet (1890). But when he did, he told his publisher that he felt he had achieved the culmination of entire creative output. In fact, it turned out to be the prelude to a further surge of strength and creativity. Brahms had also originally delayed his first string quintet, finally composed 8 years earlier, having finally felt that his first attempt was better suited as a Piano Quintet. The first String Quintet turned out instead to be one of Brahms' most cheerful chamber music works. He called it a “spring product” or, as his biographer described it, “a child of the pungent Bad Ischl corn.”