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Katy Hamilton for Building a Library explores Brahms's Third String Quartet in B flat major, Op 67. Brahms composed this quartet 1875 and dedicated it to a cellist friend, even though the cellist is the one instrument that doesn't get a prominent solo in the work. The work is composed in a lighter vein than we sometimes associate with Brahms's chamber works; he described it as "a useless trifle, to avoid facing the serious countenance of a symphony", by which he meant work on his First Symphony, which was premiered a week later.
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