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The close association between the two composers began somewhat disappointingly in 1850 – the year Schumann wrote his A minor sonata – when the 17-year-old Brahms sent the more established figure a package of scores which was returned unopened; but a subsequent meeting was a different matter. Schumann’s influence can be felt in the lyricism of Brahms’s much later first canonical sonata, and even in the viola arrangement of his later first clarinet sonata.