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Hello everyone,

The trio in A minor, the "clarinet trio" op.114 is one of the best chamber music moments in our history and my personal favourite:
This is one of my radio recordings (2007):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI6MyDme5zU

What is your favourite Brahms Trio? Please do share favourite recordings. I personaly like the Beaux Art complete recording of Brahms Trios.

Greetings from Portugal!!!

although the clarinet trio is beautiful, I would'nt go too far as claiming that to be an excellent performance. I don't believe the internet has yet to contain a real excellent performance of it with a little more coherence to the way the piece progresses.

Personally however, I would choose either the 1st or 3rd piano trios as my favorite. The 3rd piano trio, written approximately 5 years before the amazing clarinet trio, already has its harmonic advancements, being that Brahms was actually the kind of composer to use his very unique and advanced system of harmony; really, a starting point for Schoenberg and Wagner. Wagner himself admired Brahms style.

For an "ok" interpretation of the 1st piano trio, I would suggest the link below played in Japan. Besides the trios, Brahm's true genius was probably most evident in his shorter works, like the Hungarian dances and waltzes for 2 pianos. Let us not forget the last pieces he wrote for organ, the 11 Choral Preludes; they are marvelous!

Johannes Brahms : Piano Trio no. 1 {3rd movement}

xD

I like the Horn Trio.

Not what you were meaning I suppose, but I love the op.91 songs for piano, alto and viola - favourite recording probably Janet Baker.

I also love the Clarinet trio.

As for recordings, I've always enjoyed the Istomin-Stern-Rose trio. There is a wonderful CD set of them playing German romantic trios (Brahms, Schubert, etc...) that is truly amazing.

Ditto.

It`s interesting to see that the Dramatic C minor dosen`t pop up imidiatly. In my school, the horn and Clarinet trios were the most played. Any way the first is very "brahmsian", but for me the clarinet trio (also done with viola) is truly amazing.

I hope to see more coments with good recording, i`m taking notes already!!

Greetings from Portugal

The Clarinet Trio is my favorite one to play. IMO, it has the best melodies and doesn't pit the piano "against" the other instruments as much as the B major does.

In his other chamber music, I love playing the Violin Sonatas, the first cello sonata (the last movement of the F major sonata is a bit of a letdown for me), and the c minor quartet. The piano quintet is on the to-do list if I can get it together sometime.

... but the slow movement more than makes up for it, don't you think?

I've listened to goodness knows how many recordings of Brahms's Clarinet Trio. My favorite by far is by Stoltzman, Ma and Ax on Sony.

For the Horn Trio, I prefer recordings played on period instruments (such as this one), partly because Brahms specifically wrote the work for natural horn and its distinctive, colourful tone.

For the piano trios, my favorite recording is by the Trio Fontenay on Teldec/Warner Classics (though they didn't record the original version of the Op. 8 trio), though the Odeon Trio's recording (who opt for the original Op. 8) is a very close second. Unfortunately it is out of print at the moment (it was on the Capriccio label -- maybe Brilliant Classics will pick it up at some point).

At this point in my life, my personal favorite of all the Brahms trios is the Piano Trio in C minor (with the Clarinet Trio a very close second). You can download a fine live performance of the work by the Claremont Trio here.

This is a thread about trios, but I can't let this comment pass, even though it is from a poster who I greatly respect as serious, interesting and invariably accurate. Notwithstanding this, there will be points of disagreement.

IMHO there are, perhaps, two violin concertos that one would mention in the same breath as the Brahms. I can't think of one symphony of the romantic era that bears comparison with Brahms 3. The 'Requiem' is truly 'divine', in every bar.

Trios? Well, there are plenty to compare with, Beethoven, Schubert, Ravel, but the Brahms Piano Quintet is imho in a league of its own.

Like all the greatest of composers, Brahms' genius shone through, whether we refer to his large scale works or his miniatures.