Brahms may have permanently abandoned the solo piano sonata when he was just twenty, but nearly ten years later, in 1862, he returned to the genre, not for solo pianist but as a duet for cello and piano – the first of the two cello sonatas he was to write.
Brahms: Cello Sonata No. 1 in e, Op. 38
While the e-minor Cello Sonata could hardly be described as opening the floodgates, sixteen years later the composer returned to the duo sonata but this time for violin and piano, writing his Op. 78 Sonata in G, a work that formed the earliest of three works for the ensemble:
Brahms: Violin Sonata No. 1 in G, Op. 78
00:00 Vivace ma non troppo
10:29 Adagio/Più andante
18:00 Allegro molto moderato
In 1890, at the age of fifty-seven, Brahms decided that he would retire as a composer. This resolution was short lived, however, because a year later he heard a performance by, and met with the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld; the result was a rash of pieces for the instrument: a clarinet trio [clarinet, cello, piano], a quintet [clarinet, string quartet] and two sonatas for clarinet and piano. This is the second of them, Op. 120, No. 2 in E-flat; it is the last of the composer’s chamber works:
Allegro amabile 00:14
Allegro appassionato 08:12
Andante con moto 13:31
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Pontarddulais!
The Art of Listening 