Brahms’ famous piano trio
Johannes Brahms: Trio for Violin, Violoncello and Piano
Opus 101. Bärenreiter Urtext. Edited by Christopher
Hogwood. Bärenreiter-Verlag 2013. Score with parts. BA
9437. € 19.95.
Christopher
Hogwood’s
scholarly-critical
edition
of
Brahms’ final and perhaps greatest trio op. 101 is based
on two main sources, the first edition and the autograph.
The foreword of this edition presents information on contemporary performance practice; Hogwood has drawn on
the comments of Fanny Davis, a Brahms student, to shed
light on this. She describes how Brahms played the trio
with Joseph Joachim and Robert Hausmann at an informal
reading (with Clara Schumann turning pages) in BadenBaden in approx. 1895. Davis’ descriptions have much to
do with articulation, dynamics and tempo fluctuations; in
short exactly those aspects of performance practice where
we lack real direction.
[1.3.2013]