Midway in an all-Brahms chamber concert by Philharmonic members came the Clarinet Quintet, a late work not often heard, music of lavender and deep purple, shot through with burnished-bronze outcries from the solo wind player. Memories of the similarly scored work by Mozart are not out of place; nothing else of Brahms – possibly excepting the Trio with French Horn – sends forth such immediate waves of deep, penetrating beauty. Midway in the slow movement David Howard’s solo clarinet unwound its slithering melodic line across the musical spectrum; the strings answered with passionate shivers, and their moonstruck conversation continues to echo in my skull days later. That’s Brahms.