In December 1890, in a letter to his publisher Fritz Simrock, the fifty-seven-year old Johannes Brahms announced his intention to retire from composing: ‘With this scrap bid farewell to notes of mine – because it really is time to stop’. The ‘scrap’ in question was a part of the String Quintet in G major Op. 111, which the composer had completed during the previous summer. In February 1891, this new work appeared in print, together with a thorough revision made two years previously of the early Piano Trio in B major Op. 8, whose original version dated from 1854. The composer thus planned to make his valediction with two major chamber compositions which, like polished bookends, embraced the whole of his long and productive career.

Yet within only a few months of this letter Brahms was hard at work once more. In the summer of 1891, inspired by the skilful playing of Richard Mühlfeld, the principal clarinettist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, he produced both the Trio in A minor for Piano, Clarinet and Violoncello Op. 114, and the Quintet in B minor for Clarinet and Strings Op. 115. Then, three years later, came still another pair of compositions featuring Mühlfeld's instrument – the two Sonatas for Piano and Clarinet, in F minor and E, major, Op. 120. And it was only with these masterpieces of old age, finally, that Brahms concluded a lifetime's preoccupation with chamber music.