Brahms early on engaged with the violin sonata genre. As early as 1853 he wrote a sonata in a minor, which - like so many other youthful works of this self-critical composer - no longer survives. Thus the G-major sonata op. 78, written in 1878/79, is now counted as his first contribution to the genre; it has the nickname “Regenlied Sonata” (literally “rain-song sonata”) because of the quotation from a song that appears in the finale. In summer 1886 Brahms composed, almost simultaneously, the two...