It was written in the summer of 1891 in Bad Ischl for the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld and first performed privately on 24 November 1891 in Meiningen and publicly in Berlin on 12 December that year.

[1] However, Brahms' closer acquaintance with Richard Mühlfeld, the principal clarinettist of the Meiningen Court Orchestra, inspired him to dedicate himself to three new chamber music combinations featuring the clarinet between 1891 and 1894.

[1] The composition was finished soon after, and Brahms sent the manuscript to his friend Eusebius Mandyczewski in Vienna, attaching a self-effacing note saying it was "the twin sister of an even bigger folly," referring to the Clarinet Quintet, Op.

Deeply moved by Mühlfeld's playing, Menzel made a sketch of the clarinetist as a Greek god and told Brahms, "We often think of you here, and often enough, comparing notes, we confess our suspicions that on a certain night the Muse itself appeared in person for the purpose of executing a certain woodwind part.

[2] The clarinet's subtleties are perhaps most deeply explored in the Adagio, which leads the player through ample opportunities to showcase the instrument's wide range of pitch and dynamics while rendering a free-flowing musical excursion that mixes intimate fantasy with heart-on-sleeve passion.

Near the turn of the twentieth century, English scholar John Alexander Fuller Maitland suggested that this movement "comes very near to the border of the commonplace" and that "Balfe himself might have written something very like it".

In his 1933 analytical guide to Brahms' chamber music, Daniel Gregory Mason agreed with Fuller-Maitland, adding that "compared with the exquisite simplicity of so many of the intermezzi, this over-dressed tune is like the pretty peasant maiden who has spoiled herself, for a holiday at the fair, with finery and cosmetics".

[2] The harmonies shift abruptly or in a linear motion at times to support the folk-like melody given by the clarinet and cello, which is one reason Edwin Evans considers this movement is structurally unstable.

[4] Despite the initial mixed reception and some music historians and scholars admitting that the trio is "not among the most interesting of his compositions",[7] most listeners today find more to appreciate in the Andantino grazioso and the work as a whole.