Trio op. 40

Brahms’s famous Horn Trio op.40, composed in 1865 for the natural horn, is a work of considerable significance within the composer’s output. Up until now the work was believed to have a strong emotional connection to the death of his mother three months earlier. However, Christopher Hogwood draws on a newly discovered source for this Bärenreiter publication, a source that has not been available for any previous edition. We now learn that Brahms wrote at least the trio movement some twelve years earlier – in 1853 – and that it was originally intended for solo piano. This piano movement is printed in the appendix.

This Urtext edition offers not only the standard instrumentation of violin, horn and piano but also the alternative scoring for violoncello or viola instead of horn. The variants found in the violoncello and viola parts are shown as ossias in the score.

The introduction (Eng/Ger) describes the compositional process, includes information on the performance and publication history of the work, and offers comments on performance practice. A critical commentary with facsimile pages of the manuscript rounds off this pioneering edition.

• Appendix with the 1853 piano version of the trio movement
• Includes alternative parts for violoncello and viola