After three records of Brahms chamber music, I’m Brahmsed through. It took me until side five to find out that the first record was entirely dedicated to different instruments than the regular strings. I usually enjoy these small changes. That horn trio I once got on CD for my birthday, and I always liked the work.
Brahms wrote the clarinet trio as late as 1891. Where the previous works I wrote about were from the 1860, this is clearly the work of the older Brahms. In 1878 he surprised his friends by growing a beard, and that image is what we now universally recognize as Brahms: a slightly heavyweight man sporting a giant beard. Sometimes I imagine we can hear the beard in the music.
This concerto is now a standard work for clarinet. To be able to sell it better, the title page of the work claims the clarinet can also be replaced by a viola. The best known part is probably the second, the Adagio.