G. Henle Verlag

The premiere of this work in December 1813 ranks among the greatest successes Beethoven ever celebrated in public as a composer. One reviewer wrote at the time that in its themes the new symphony was...

Sandwiched between the popular Symphonies Nos. 7 and 9, the relatively short Eighth Symphony finds itself in a difficult position even now. Right after the premiere in February 1814, one critic opined...

After the first sketches had been put to paper in 1815, Beethoven only finally put the finishing touches to his last completed symphony in 1824. With its extended finale in which soloists and choir pe...

All music lovers are familiar with Haydn's great late oratorios - but who also knows the first one that he wrote about 25 years earlier? Although the Biblical story of young Tobias who is able to cure...

Spurred on by the tremendos success of the 'Creation', van Swieten, who had written the libretto and comissioned the work, prompted Haydn to compose a further large-scale oratorio. At first, the compo...

Brahms struggled for years with composition of his First Symphony -- the feeling of impotence in the face of Beethoven's works seemed overwhelming. He wrote to his friend, the conductor Hermann Levi:...

Between 1859 and 1885 Johannes Brahms, with his four symphonies, two piano concertos, violin concerto, dances, variations and overtures, became the representative of large-scale orchestral music. In 1...

During composition of his First Symphony, Brahms was still very much under Beethoven's influence; in his Second Symphony he loosened the ties considerably. The principle of motivic embellishment now i...

Brahms hesitated for a long time over writing a solo concerto for an instrument whose technique he was not very familiar with. Therefore in 1877/78 his Concerto for violin and orchestra op. 77 came in...

On the premiere of the 3rd Symphony in the Musikvereinssaal in Vienna in 1883, the Wagnerites, who disliked Brahms, hissed after every movement. Yet Brahms' biographer Max Kalbeck said, 'The audience...

The genesis of the Fourth Symphony possibly goes back to the 1870s when Brahms was studying the Bach Cantata 'Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich', whose chaconne theme forms the nucleus of the finale. Aro...

Around 40 minutes in length and scored for diverse instruments including horns, trumpets and timpani, the Serenade in D major by Johannes Brahms comes close to the symphony. Written in 1858/59 by the...

In his Serenade no. 2 op. 16, composed in 1858-60, Brahms keeps to the usual, smaller, scoring for this genre, using pairs of winds and horns as well as low strings (no violins!). His friend Clara Sch...

Johannes Brahms only approached the symphony genre slowly and with a great many qualms. After he had revised and rejected numerous earlier attempts, he did not introduce himself to the public as a sym...

Debussy's Rhapsody was commissioned by the wealthy amateur Elise Hall, who paid the composer a considerable sum in advance. Yet work on it was not easy; following his death all that existed was a fini...

Camille Saint-Saëns was always trying to expand the rather sparse repertoire for chamber music for wind instruments, something that is not least also shown by his three late wind sonatas for oboe, cla...

When Beethoven visited the director of music at the cathedral in Linz, Franz Xaver Glöggl, in autumn 1812, the latter asked his guest to 'compose socalled Equali for 4 trombones for All Souls' Day 2 N...

Alban Berg's String Quartet can be considered to be one of the founding works of the Second Viennese School. Already composed in 1910 and first published in 1920, it was the last composition the 25-ye...

Mozart's 'Kleine Nachtmusik' is surely one of the most popular works of so-called classical music. Although his manuscript is not completely free of corrections, it is still undoubtedly one of Mozart'...

Mozart's Kleine Nachtmusik' is certainly one of the most popular works of so-called 'classical music'. Although his manuscript is not completely free of corrections, it is nevertheless undoubtedly one...

Mozart's Kleine Nachtmusik' is certainly one of the most popular works of so-called 'classical music'. Although his manuscript is not completely free of corrections, it is nevertheless undoubtedly one...

Mozart's Kleine Nachtmusik' is certainly one of the most popular works of so-called 'classical music'. Although his manuscript is not completely free of corrections, it is nevertheless undoubtedly one...

Mozart's Kleine Nachtmusik' is certainly one of the most popular works of so-called 'classical music'. Although his manuscript is not completely free of corrections, it is nevertheless undoubtedly one...

En las primeras interpretaciones de esta sonata, compuesta entre 1920 y 1922, incluso los amigos íntimos del compositor se sintieron perturbados: Después de los sonidos embriagadores de La Valse, la p...

While he was still in Bonn, perhaps in 1792 the year he departed for Vienna, Beethoven wrote this Duo for Violin and Violoncello. We do not know whether he ever completed his work as only the beginnin...