Description

This volume sheds light on a largely unknown side of Johannes Brahms, namely as an arranger of works by other composers. Brahms wrote congenial orchestral versions for selected piano songs by Franz Schubert, the scoring appropriate to the topic and the tone of the original. For example, Brahms uses a large orchestra including trombones, trumpets and timpani for the sombre choral song “Gruppe aus dem Tartarus”, but only strings and solo horn for the tender love poem “Geheimes”. The volume comprises six complete and accomplished orchestrations, as well as an appendix containing a fragment that Brahms’s housekeeper rescued from the wastebasket and handed down to posterity. An informative introduction by the editor Katrin Eich rounds off this extraordinary volume.