Programme Notes
JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-
PIANO CONCERTO No 2 IN B-
Allegro non troppo
Allegro appassionato
Andante
Allegretto grazioso
Soloist: CHARLES OWEN
One of the most haunting and romantic openings in the concert repertoire is the first six bars of Brahms's second piano concerto: a lonely call of mysterious portent from the solo horn, sounded twice and each time answered by the piano. That horn motif recurs throughout the first movement and in subtly changing forms, now fragmented, now complete and played by the full orchestra, with the mighty dramatic sweep of which Brahms, of all composers, was capable.
The entire concerto is constructed on a similarly majestic scale, with a solo piano part that demands not only a master's technique but formidable physical strength. It is the longest piano concerto in the concert repertoire. Brahms liked to mislead his friends about the works he was writing, and in the summer of 1881 he wrote to Elizabeth von Herzogenburg that he had written 'a tiny, tiny piano concerto, with a tiny, tiny wisp of a scherzo'. The work is also unlike any other in having not three but four movements: one critic called it a symphony with piano obbligato. Immense in scale, it expresses whole volumes, beginning with the confident, heroic first movement. Then comes the 'tiny wisp of a scherzo,' the tense allegro appasionato with a triumphant, martial middle section, followed in turn by a slow movement which gives the solo cello one of the most tender and moving melodies even Brahms composed. A final contrast comes with the Allegretto grazioso, with its jauntily tripping, even Mozartian air.
This magnificent work was composed at a period when Brahms's fluency as a composer was apparently without limit: in the space of five years he wrote his violin concerto, his second and third symphonies, the Academic Festival and Tragic overtures, and numerous chamber and vocal works. Among this catalogue of masterpieces the second piano concerto occupies a distinctive place. Brahms dedicated it to one of the two men who first taught him, his 'dear friend and teacher' Eduard Marxsen.
Brahms himself gave the concerto's first performance in November 1881. The concert was in Budapest, with Alexander Erkel conducting a programme which also included an overture by Cherubini and Brahms's own first symphony. The concerto was a great success, and in the following year Brahms embarked on an extensive tour during which he played it in a number of musical centres, adding still further to his now assured reputation as pianist and composer.
Programme Notes by Paul Vaughan ©
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