This Trio’s unusual scoring for horn, violin and piano prompted speculation early on about a possible background to it that had no connection with music. Brahms’s biographer Max Kalbeck saw in it a lament for the composer’s mother, recently deceased, to whom he had supposedly played folk songs on the horn in his childhood. There is no doubt that Brahms loved the sound of the natural horn, and bestowed several of his most inspired melodies on the instrument. Horn players justifiably adore this Trio op. 40, and this Henle Urtext edition now offers an optimal basis for studying and performing this masterpiece. Urtext Edition, paperbound for Horn in E flat and F with parts for viola and violoncello Editor: Katharina Loose-Einfalt Fingering: Klaus Schilde