Like a crocus blossoming in the snow, Brahms's final years produced some of his most extraordinary compositions. Indeed, it was only after officially ending his career that the German composer rediscovered the expressive possibilities of the clarinet—and thus were born, thanks to Brahms's clarinetist friend Richard Mühlfeld, the Clarinet Sonatas of Op. 120. While these sonatas demonstrate a lucid compositional structure, their intimate and poetic character seems to announce the dissolution of forms post-Brahms by composers like Debussy, Schoenberg, and Mahler.

Elena Bashkirova and Wenzel Fuchs offer a superb interpretation of the Sonata Op. 120, No. 1 in F minor which, without losing itself in excessive dramatic gestures, creates an atmosphere akin to a Nocturne of great melodic finesse.