Variations on a folk song setting by Johannes Brahms

With his diverse musical activities and venues, Frank Maus (1937–2022) was an institution in the musical life of the cosmopolitan city of Berlin. Born in Haan near Solingen, he worked as a solo repetiteur at the Vienna State Opera, after studying in Cologne, and from 1966 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin before being appointed to a professorship for repertoire in the singing and music theatre department at the former Berlin University of the Arts in 1981.

Thanks to his extensive experience with all eras of classical vocal music and musical theatre in particular, he became the piano partner of famous vocal soloists such as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Luciano Pavarotti and Plácido Domingo. He also worked intensively with instrumentalists and conductors. For more than 20 years he advised Herbert von Karajan, until the conductor’s death in 1989. Whenever clarification was needed on questions of version, or help was needed for radio and record productions with difficult decisions on arrangements, it was always Frank Maus who was consulted and who found the solution with stylistic confidence and immense knowledge of the repertoire.

In addition, there was his own creativity as a composer. Besides larger works, Frank Maus also left behind a large number of chamber music compositions, which he wrote for his own use or for the special virtuosity of befriended soloists.

With this edition of the Variations on a folk song setting by Johannes Brahms (KLB 109) for clarinet in A and piano, a composition by Frank Maus is now appearing in print for the first time. In addition, Maus’ Variations on a theme by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (KLB 108) for the same instrumentation has been published simultaneously.