Brahms: Frei Aber Einsam - Piano Sonata No.3 / Piano Quintet

"For me f. a. e. [frei, aber einsam] has remained a symbol, and it is in my gift, despite all, to invoke it." Johannes Brahms to Joseph Joachim, March 5, 1888 Johannes Brahms sought solitude, in order to find freedom in music and in composition. In his new album "Frei aber einsam" - free but lonely - pianist Matthias Kirschnereit brings Brahms's timeless music into the present day. What can we learn from his works? "Certainly not that we should renounce love and all live the ascetic life", says Kirschnereit. "But perhaps that we need to focus, take time out and ask ourselves where we want to go. And we can best do that in a state of solitude in the most positive sense of the word. Then we may be able to catch flashes from our own personal chasms. They can sound so sweet! Brahms cultivates dark melancholy, after all, not kitsch." F. A. E. is thus a reference for the pianist to a captivating and at the same time puzzling composer, coupled with a thought of Johannes Brahms the man, of his life's motto. In the two "monoliths" - the F minor Sonata and the F minor Quintet - this motto takes musical form. The Scherzo from the eponymous Sonata for piano and violin was Brahms's first musical involvement with this subject. The close link between Brahms's artistic achievement and his philosophy of life is well documented. "He made it clear to his friends time and again that he wished to live wholly for music, wholly for his compositions. He was concerned that bourgeois obligations, which he viewed as fetters, would harm his work", the pianist says. Romantic to the depths of its musical being, this recording wonderfully brings alive the (musical) motto that governed the life of Johannes Brahms. Added interest is won from the chamber-music coupling and his collaboration with the Amaryllis Quartett and violinist Lena Neudauer.