Inside Chamber Music with Bruce Adolphe: Brahms's Quartet in A minor

“Whether it is beautiful also is an entirely different matter. But perfect it must be.” — Johannes Brahms

A master craftsman devoted to tradition, Brahms felt strongly that every note must count, every phrase must have purpose, and that a finished composition should be “unassailable”. In the slow movement of this quartet, Brahms gives us a work that is certainly technically impeccable, but it is also deeply a personal statement of intense beauty.

Excerpts from Brahms' Quartet in A minor for Strings, Op. 51, No. 2 (1865-73)

Recorded in the Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Studio. Originally aired on October 27, 2021.