Brahms violin and horn sonatas

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definitely a musician of autumn. At its most characteristic, his music is ripe and full of wisdom, music that feels the chill in the air but knows that the beauty of life is in its evanescence.

Brahms was at his most exalted in his orchestral works, his most personal in his piano works, and his most spiritual in his choral works. But he may have been at his best in his sociable chamber music and straightforward songs. In the chamber music, a handful of performers hold a musical conversation among themselves on matters deep and true; in the songs, a pair of performers speak directly to the audience of matters near and dear.

On Saturday, November 4, at Kerrytown Concert House, the Ann Arbor audience can hear Brahms at his autumnal best when violinist Hai-Xin Wu, the Detroit Symphony's assistant concertmaster, and Karl Pituch, the DSO's principal hornist, join Ann Arbor's own pianist Michele Cooker for performances of two of Brahms's chamber music masterpieces: the D Minor Violin Sonata and the E-flat Major Horn Trio. And in between, soprano Jane Rodgers and pianist Kevin Bylsma, the duo who bring you the Ann Arbor Festival of Song, will perform Brahms's Gypsy Songs.