When Johannes Brahms was, in the late summer of 1868, recuperating in the Swiss Alps, a very real „inspiration“ happened to him: somewhere in the distance, he heard an alphorn play a melody, that he immediately wrote down. The following day, he sent this notation to his friend (and maybe lover?) Clara Schumann (wife of the composer Robert Schumann) as a greeting for her birthday. As a title above the notes, he wrote ”Also blus das Alphorn heut” (“This is what the alphorn played today”). Years la...