Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 | Yefim Bronfman, Antonio Pappano & the Verbier Festival Orchestra

One of the most beautiful piano concertos of all time. Johannes Brahms sat at the piano when his Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83 was performed for the first time – to great applause – in Budapest in 1881. Here, you hear this romantic orchestral piece being played in a live recording from the 2017 Verbier Festival. Antonio Pappano was conducting the Verbier Festival Orchester, while Yefim Bronfman played the piano.

(00:00) Coming on stage
(00:38) Allegro non troppo
(18:09) Allegro appassionato
(27:31) Andante
(38:32) Allegretto grazioso

He had composed a “really small piano concerto,” Johannes Brahms wrote a friend – and meant his magnificent Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83 that enthralled his audience in 1881. The composer and pianist himself put his own virtuosic piano-playing prowess to the test. Brahm’s first piano concerto from 22 years prior received a more muted response. Perhaps because Brahm’s style of composing was not yet so well known.

When he wrote his second piano concerto, he was already 44 years old, well off and a successful composer of chamber music and songs. He was living and earning well as a freelance composer. The audience was curious about his new piece because of his fame alone.

Some critics deemed it to be more of a symphony with a solo piano – a fusing of classic symphonic form and virtuosic concert. Johannes Brahm’s didn’t just leave the development of the musical themes to the orchestra. The piano concerto begins with the horns, which play the first romantic motif – which is then pursued by the piano, to be fully unleashed by the orchestra. The piano basically works as an orchestra instrument and is almost constantly present.

Johannes Brahms wrote his friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg not only that he had written a really small piano concerto but also that this concerto included “a really small, delicate scherzo.” It can be heard in an interposed, short, second movement of a total of four movements. That already alone was unusual, because instrumental concertos of the period were generally made up of three movements. And it is by no means a “small, delicate scherzo” but a tremendous piano part demanding top-notch finger technique and virtuosity from soloists.

Nowadays, Brahms remains well known for his song compositions and for folkloristic elements in his pieces. In the third movement, where the piano plays paired with delicate soloist cello sounds, the composer incorporates his song “My sleep grows ever quieter.” In the rondo, elements of Hungarian folklore appear, as they are also known from Brahm’s Hungarian dances.

When it comes to imposing technique and great interpretation prowess, the name Yefim Bronfman is high up on the list. He is considered one of the most significant pianists worldwide. The Israeli-American pianist was born in 1958 in Tashkent, in the Soviet Union. In 1973, his family emigrated to Israel. He had his international debut with Zubin Mehta and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in 1975. Bronfman is a winner of the Avery Fisher Prize, one of the greatest distinctions for American musicians. In 2015, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.

British conductor Antonio Pappano, with Italian roots, has been the new Chief Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra since July 2024. As the Chief Conductor Designate, he had already taken on the role in 2023, thereby replacing Sir Simon Rattle. This is in parallel to his tasks as the Music Director at the Royal Opera House of London – a position he had held since 2002. Here, Pappano is conducting the Verbier Festival Orchestra. The Verbier Festival is one of the world’s most prestigious classical music events. The quality of participating artists is matched by the originality of the program. The festival is held from late July to early August in the mountain resort of Verbier, Switzerland.

© 2017 EuroArts Music International/Idéale Audience

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