Brahms has been occupying my thoughts recently as I try to wrestle his Eb Major Sonata, originally for clarinet (or viola) and piano, into form for my first solo CD.

Preparing this music can have a very humbling effect as I try to get it to sound as clearly and beautifully as it was written. I am constantly amazed at the level of refinement and note shape control that this music demands; the kinds of things that come so easily on the clarinet, which are littered throughout this piece, have a way of making the well-meaning trumpet player sound like a total ass. Sometimes I feel like I am walking on egg shells as I try to keep my “softs” soft enough and my “louds” refined enough.

In trying to feel as at home as possible with this repertoire, I have been reading correspondence between Clara Schumann and Brahms. The letters I have read thus far are moving and insightful, but one little line that I read yesterday really opened my mind and gave at least some validity to my idea of transcribing some of the most sacred chamber music repertoire on the planet for trumpet and piano.

This letter, written by Brahms to Clara in late October of 1854 (just think, a mere 153 years ago!) concludes with the following paragraphs:

How long I have waited for news of you, and with what anxiety!
Could you not telegraph me a little greeting every morning? I should be electrified for the whole day, and how beautifully I should play. I will not tolerate being without you any longer.
Why did you not allow me to learn the flute so that I could have accompanied you on your journeys?

And then the line that caught my eye, reduced my guilt over tinkering with the sacred, and opened up my imagination for how I could play this piece:

Then I should have arranged the andante of the Sonata in F minor for flute, guitar, and timpani, and I should have made it a serenade.

Timpani?! I do not think I would have ever had the courage to re-arrange a Brahms Sonata for timpani and any other instrument, but clearly Brahms himself had no such scruples. It is worth remembering, when preparing music by musical masters, that they themselves may be much more risqué and flexible about their own music than we would ever expect them to be, and that perhaps the limits we feel in our interpretation might just be of our own making, or that of our teacher’s.

Last night, after reading this letter, I sat down and ran through the Brahms, only this time I played it as if he himself had just re-arranged it for trumpet — something I have done often before, but never with the belief that it could actually have been possible. Now, knowing that Brahms himself would rearrange one of his own Sonatas (and even include timpani in the arrangement), I knew it was. I let the fortes soar; I kept the pianos in the low register singing and soulful; I didn’t force the trumpet to sound like a clarinet or a viola in any way. I played it like a true trumpet piece and it worked.

So what does this mean for us performing musicians? In short it means this:

Play what you want to play and do it with belief, sincerity, and conviction. Through this process you will likely find that you have discovered the true spirit of a piece of music, a spirit that could be discovered in no other way.

But for crying out loud, don’t arrange a Brahms Sonata for a trio and include timpani as one of the instruments, that would simply be ludicrous.

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