Lnso Chamber Music. Brahms, Pärt, And Penderecki by Brahms, Pärt, Penderecki, Du (2022/2022), Great Guild, Riga, Lettonie

Around 1890, Brahms, then 57 years old, decides to retire from composing and “leave it to the young". Yet, he crosses paths with the clarinettist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, Richard Mühlfeld, and a year later, enchanted by his performance, Brahms composes an delightful and ethereal Clarinet Quintet, followed by a number of other great chamber works featuring the clarinet. Arvo Pärt's Summa, originally written as a choral work and only later given an instrumental form, is also ethereal, yet represents a different era. When composing the Clarinet Quartet, Penderecki draws inspiration from Schubert's Quintet in C Major, which is not the only source of influence as the piece also references Beethoven, Schoenberg, and Berg – a panorama of Viennese music through the ages.