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40 BRAHMS_INTÉGRALE DE L’ŒUVRE POUR PIANO
Of the 122 opus numbers in the
catalogue of Johannes Brahms, a
mere twenty or so are for piano solo.
But their composition stretched over a
period of more than forty years (from
1851 to 1893, and from op.1 to op.119),
and they constitute both a shortcut for
surveying Brahms’s output as a whole
and an œuvre in their own right, with
his style already present from the very
first works, becomingmore individual
and complex as the years go, before
attaining its quintessence with his
late maturity.