Le tre sonate per violino e pianoforte di Brahms by Brahms, 从 (2018/2018), Refettorio Museo Nazionale, Ravenna, Italy

“High formal sobriety and tender expressive intimacy” are, in Massimo Mila’s words, the traits that equally concur in defining the mood of Brahms’ Sonatas for violin and piano. These “mature” works, composed over the 1879-1888 decade, pick up the cumbersome legacy of Beethoven’s chamber music to achieve a rigorous, traditional formal balance, an expression of sentiment and aesthetic freedom, an apparent spontaneity where the symphonic experience adapts to the intimate dimension of a dialogue between two parties.