LDV61

20 BRAHMS_PIANO QUINTET IN F MINOR OP.34 / KLAVIERSTÜCKE OP.76 The Klavierstücke op.76 Alongside the sonatas and the sets of variations, the Klavierstücke represent the third major component of Brahms’s output for piano. These pieces are grouped into six published collections (opp.76, 79, 116, 117, 118 and 119). The first set of Klavierstücke was composed in the summer of 1878 and the last one in the summer of 1893. These are works that tell us a great deal about the innermost thoughts of the composer, then aged forty-five, somuch so that their sober, not to say neutral title, ‘Klavierstücke’ – simply, pieces for piano – seems to conceal not a few confessions. ‘A certain abstraction of style and form grants Brahms great expressive freedom. Although op.76 is the first stage in the series of Klavierstücke , it is certainly the one inwhich he went furthest in terms of rhythmic complexity and polyphonic texture’, says Geoffroy Couteau. The cycle consists of eight pieces: four capriccios and four intermezzi. What do these titles mean? Do they really correspond to a precise definition? ‘I suppose Brahms gave them that name because it meant something to him. These eight pieces constitute a cycle in their own right because they form an arch of genuine power.You can also sense the influence of Schumann – I’mthinking here of Bunte Blätter,Waldszenen, Gesänge der Fruhe . In those pieces, Schumann embraces the element of fragmentation and seems to question the predominance of firmly defined form. Brahms follows him in this reasoning by writing music that is purely expressive, free of all constraints.’