Michael Collins & Friends: Late Brahms

This is a chance to enjoy a full afternoon immersed in the lavish Romanticism of Brahms, with a programme including some of the composer’s most personal and profound creations. Brahms’ music for clarinet came late in his life. He had been poised to retire, thinking it was time to pass the baton to a new generation of composers – until he heard the clarinet virtuoso Richard Mühlfeld play, and was inspired to write for him. Two new sonatas and a Clarinet Quintet followed, all of them music of extraordinary freshness, lyricism and depth. Alongside these, Haefliger and the Talich Quartet play the Piano Quintet: energetic, ferocious and high-spirited, it’s a roller-coaster ride from start to finish.