When his contemporaries heard the Piano Pieces op. 118 that Johannes Brahms had composed, they were delighted. Clara Schumann was one of the first to be allowed to get to know the new pieces, and she attested that they contained “a wealth of sentiment in the smallest of dimensions.” Philipp Spitta fittingly said that the works were “perfect for slowly absorbing in solitude and tranquillity.” Because the melancholic A-major Intermezzo op. 118 no. 2 numbers among the composer’s best-known miniatures, G. Henle Publishers is now offering it in a separate edition. Due to its moderate level of difficulty, it also gives advanced students a foretaste of the cosmos of Brahms’ late work.
