Piano Concerto No. 2 (Brahms)
The Second Piano Concerto in B flat major, Op 83 by Johannes Brahms was written only 22 years after his first piano concerto. Brahms began work on it in 1878 and finished the work in 1881 in Press tree near Vienna.
Unlike most concerts, which consist of three sets, this item four, the slow third movement also stands out for the role of a soloist prominent cello:
With its four movements and a considerable duration of almost 50 minutes of this concert comes close to the type of a " symphony with piano solo " right. The concert was at the time of origination of the longest if not the longest ever.
Brahms sent a copy of the completed score to his friend, the surgeon and Geiger Theodor Billroth, which the composer had dedicated his first two string quartets. Despite its ambitious scope Brahms remarked on this occasion only " a couple of small piano pieces ". He loved those understatements. In a letter to Elizabeth of Herzogenberg it was said that he had " a very small piano concerto written with a very small delicate scherzo ". In fact, this second sentence is ten minutes and also very dramatic.
The piece was premiered on November 9, 1881 in Budapest, and Brahms himself played the solo part. Unlike his First Piano Concerto, which was recorded more reserved, the second piano concerto was a great success. Brahms was a series of successful concerts in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, partly conducted by Hans von Bülow.
Famous recordings
Among the large number of recordings of this work, the recording of Sviatoslav Richter Erich Leinsdorf and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, for example, emphasized. Other famous recordings:
- Claudio Arrau, Concertgebouw, Bernard Haitink (Philips 1969)
- Krystian Zimerman, Wiener Philharmoniker, Leonard Bernstein (DGG 1985)
- Emil Gilels, Berliner Philharmoniker, Eugen Jochum (DGG 1972)
- Arthur Rubinstein, RCA Symphony Orchestra, Josef Krips (RCA 1958)
- Vladimir Horowitz, NBC Symphony Orchestra, Arturo Toscanini (viola, live recording 1940)
Audio- video
A concert by the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle on August 24, 2012 with the pianist Yefim Bronfman is available in the Digital Concert Hall of the Philharmonic.