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GARY HOFFMAN 25
When did you first hear the Brahms sonatas?
Gary Hoffman
:When I was still very young, a child, around the age of nine or ten. I
was born into a family of musicians. My aunt was a cellist, but at that time she was
in an orchestra in Chicago. The first time I heard them, it wasn’t played by her, but
on the radio or perhaps on a record. Before I heard these sonatas, I already knew
other works for the cellowell. Butwhen I discovered them, they immediately spoke
to me. I felt a profundity in them, as if a natural bond attached me to this music.
I might add that I already had a certain familiarity with the music of Brahms. My
father conducted the symphonies, and my mother, who was a violinist, played the
sonatas and the Violin Concerto. It was a repertory that was already very present
in my mind; I had already picked up its syntax, especially as my older brother, who
is a pianist, often playedworks by Brahms at home. And then later on, in the family
circle, we started to perform the trios, the quartets, the quintets. That shaped my
musical taste and created awhole network of connections betweenmy personality
and the music of Brahms. Brahms was part of my landscape.