One may be surprised to hear in this recording the Sonata Op. 108 in D minor for cello and not for violin as Brahms conceived it. But, purists be damned, transcription in the 19th century was common practice, if only to facilitate the dissemination of works at a time when sound recording was not yet available! Indeed, didn’t Brahms himself transcribe his two Clarinet Sonatas Op. 120 for viola? In the present recording, Marie- Claude Bantigny has chosen simply to play the violin part an octave lower, without modifying the piano part in any way (unlike Paul Klengel in Op. 78), which allows the score to be heard practically in its original conception, like the same Lied that would be sung by a soprano or a bass baritone.
After having sketched it out, as we have seen above, as early as 1886, it was still on the shores of Lake Thun that Brahms refined his Sonata Op. 108 two years later. The composer, aged fifty-five, seems to have reached a kind of maturity in his inspiration and writing, the fullness of which is reinforced here by the cello’s deeper, warmer tone; and what is perhaps lost in brio seems gained in lyricism.