Trio Wanderer - Brahms Piano Trio in B (1854 version)

Brahms was a scholar’s nightmare. He burned many letters and destroyed traces of works that didn’t meet his standards. But, late in life, he revisited and thoroughly revised a youthful, published work, the Piano Trio in B, Op. 8.

And the Piano Quartet in C minor, published as his Op. 60, was begun in the throes of his passion for Clara Schumann in 1855, but not completed until 1875. Trio Wanderer here offer the rarely heard original version of the trio, looser, more youthfully impetuous and garrulous than the much-modified final version.

They couple it with the quartet which more clearly embraces styles of youth and middle age. A fascinating coupling in strongly projected performances. harmoniamundi.com