Brahms Klavierstücke Op. 118

Composed in 1892-93, Brahms’s piano pieces opp. 116 to 119 are the last collections that he wrote for the instrument. Particularly noteworthy is his use of 'small forms' accompanied by a further increase in musical expression compared to his earlier works. In November 1892 Clara Schumann, probably the secret dedicatee of these pieces, confided to her diary that they were 'a true source of enjoyment, everything, poetry, passion, rapture, intimacy, full of the most marvellous effects [...]. In these pieces I at last feel musical life re-enter my soul, and I play once more with true devotion.'
The Six Piano Pieces, op. 118, include four intermezzos, a ballad and a romance. They were composed in summer 1893 in the Austrian resort of Bad Ischl, where Brahms had written the Fantasies, op. 116 (BA 9628), and Three Fantasies, op. 117 (BA 9629), the previous year. Once again Clara Schumann was allowed to try out the pieces, which she greeted as 'treasures': Brahms, she said, had given expression to 'a wealth of feeling within the narrowest of confines'. Indeed, the frequently played pieces of op. 118 reveal his musical cosmos in concentrated form with kaleidoscopic variety.