LDV64.5

GEOFFROY COUTEAU, AMAURY COEYTAUX, RAPHAËL PERRAUD, NICOLAS BALDEYROU 25 This autumnal colour, which Nietzsche was fond of observing in the paintings of Claude Lorrain, the colour one would like to ‘immortalise’ so as never to lose it, appears in all Brahms’s works for clarinet, borne by the rich brown hues of the instrument. At the beginning of the Trio op.114, the Allegro alla breve states a heartbreaking phrase on the cello, repeated on the clarinet; everything then intensifies in a dialogue of great unity, devoid of conflict. The Adagio is a romance intoned by the clarinet, then taken up by the cello in a quiet and serene atmosphere, a meditation that nothing comes to disturb, despite a second, more flexible theme allotted to the piano. The Andantino grazioso is based on a motif that still possesses a very Viennese, well-nigh voluptuous spirit, in the form of a ‘quasi-waltz’. The Allegro finale reverts to a heroic and tumultuous tone – something that, finally, Brahms retained right to the end . . .