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Grieving with Brahms After a Mother’s Death | The New Yorker

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There is enormous sadness in his work, a sadness that glows with understanding.

Save this story Save this story My mother, the mineralogist Daphne Ross, died on February 24th, at the age of ninety-one, of complications from Parkinson’s disease. It was late evening in Los Angeles when my brother called with the news, and I got to the airport in time for a red-eye to Washington, D.C. Unable to sleep, I spent the flight listening to late-period works by Johannes Brahms: his two clarinet sonatas, his Clarinet Quintet and Trio, his final pieces for piano. I broke down in tears only once, when Radu Lupu, on his incomparable Decca recording of the later piano music, offered up t

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