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Johannes Brahms’s death in 1897 signaled the end of a musical era, one born of the Viennese Classical tradition of Haydn and Mozart; nurtured by Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann; and ultimately embodied by the uncompromising quality and ravishing expressivity of Brahms’s finest music. At the end of his life, Brahms grew poignantly aware of his music and his era fading into history as the cultural landscape gave way to ever more radical ideas. Disc VII explores the soulful timbres of the viola, the clarinet, and Brahms’s closest friend, the piano, where he found a voice for the bittersweet farewell of his final works.