Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83
Johannes Brahms (1833-97)
Allegro non troppo; Allegro appassionato; Andante; Allegretto grazioso
Having completed his Second Piano Concerto in the summer of 1881, Brahms took the solo role at the Budapest première of November in that year, and continued as soloist on a highly successful tour of North European countries immediately afterwards. It pleased audiences and critics hugely, unlike his first concerto, premièred 22 years earlier. Only Hugo Wolf, the grumpy composer/critic, dissented: ‘Who can swallow this concerto with appetite … the nutritive equivalent of window glass, cork stoppers and stove pipes’, he wrote. No-one heeded Wolf because the musical world realised that a remarkable and intriguingly self-contradictory work had been born.
The first and most striking contradiction concerns scale. Here we have the longest well-known concerto ever written: a triumphant colossus stretching piano virtuosity to new limits, but the orchestra is modest in size. Brahms asks for no heavy brass instruments, no percussion instruments beyond the timpani, and no harp or third woodwind instruments such as piccolo or cor anglais. So economical is the orchestral palette, he dispenses with the timpani and trumpets entirely in the third and fourth movements.
The second contrast concerns texture. Unlike the First Concerto, which is largely symphonic in conception and style, the Second Concerto highlights moments of transparency, more reminiscent of chamber music than the acreage of a concert hall. For example, the concerto’s opening features an intimate dialogue between a single horn and the piano soloist; the third movement opens with a long and lyrical melody for the principal cellist couched within a gentle accompaniment; the finale is full of joie-de-vivre, somewhat akin to the skipping rondos of W.A. Mozart and Josef Haydn.
So what did Brahms himself think of his creation? Here we have a small problem because he enjoyed irony and self-deprecation. To his friend, Elizabeth von Herzogenberg, he wrote, ‘I have written a tiny little piano concerto with a mere wisp of a scherzo.’ Later he revealed to her the other side of his newest creation, describing it as ‘the Long Terror’. In most senses, it is not ‘small’. Its length is partly due to there being four rather than the more usual three movements. When the soloist throws caution to the winds, its weight becomes apparent, especially in the first movement where the writing for the left hand is particularly demanding. Yet the moments of delicacy are also memorable. The piano seems almost to be conducting love affairs with the orchestral instruments: with the horn at the opening; with the cello and clarinet in the third movement; and with everyone in the last. Malcolm Macdonald wrote:
In its massive chording, wide [finger] stretches, vigour, richness and textural variety, the piano writing is the most elaborate result of Brahms’s lifelong fascination with virtuoso technique. The soloist must … dominate with the utmost power at certain junctures, but other moments call for extreme delicacy and limpidity of touch…
This explains why the concerto strikes one as being so gigantic. Within its considerable length, it comprises a comprehensive range of techniques, moods and forms, some of which are heroic (but never bombastic), and others that are quiet and intimate.
Although the work as a whole is remarkably close-knit, we may gain more from viewing its exterior than from analysing its skeleton. All four movements are couched within recognisable forms and each of them makes its unique emotional impact. In a sense, they sing their own songs without a need for commentary. Even so, certain landmarks are too interesting to ignore. In the first movement, the opening melody provides the basic musical material for much that follows, and it returns in various guises to cement the unity that such a huge essay requires. The vigorous scherzo is no joke (even though ‘scherzo’ translates as ‘joke’) but its teeth-gritting minor mode and awkward rhythms surrender to an uplifting Handelian ‘trio’ section in D major, almost choral in character.
The song-like third movement is full of wistfulness. An exquisite cello solo has been noted, but we should also listen out for some enchanting solos for the clarinet occurring later on. Late in life, Brahms adapted the main theme of this movement as a sentimental song, Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer (‘My slumber grows ever more peaceful’). The last movement is something of a romp, the themes tumbling one upon another in a continuous display of invention and inspiration. Unlike concertos in which the soloist and orchestra seem to be pitched against each other as musical adversaries, this one is a triumph of musical cooperation, humour and affection. The last movement allows this partnership to prosper gloriously, to the delight of audiences and to the intense satisfaction of performers as well.
Johannes Brahms (1833-97)
Allegro non troppo; Allegro appassionato; Andante; Allegretto grazioso
Having completed his Second Piano Concerto in the summer of 1881, Brahms took the solo role at the Budapest première of November in that year, and continued as soloist on a highly successful tour of North European countries immediately afterwards. It pleased audiences and critics hugely, unlike his first concerto, premièred 22 years earlier. Only Hugo Wolf, the grumpy composer/critic, dissented: ‘Who can swallow this concerto with appetite … the nutritive equivalent of window glass, cork stoppers and stove pipes’, he wrote. No-one heeded Wolf because the musical world realised that a remarkable and intriguingly self-contradictory work had been born.
The first and most striking contradiction concerns scale. Here we have the longest well-known concerto ever written: a triumphant colossus stretching piano virtuosity to new limits, but the orchestra is modest in size. Brahms asks for no heavy brass instruments, no percussion instruments beyond the timpani, and no harp or third woodwind instruments such as piccolo or cor anglais. So economical is the orchestral palette, he dispenses with the timpani and trumpets entirely in the third and fourth movements.
The second contrast concerns texture. Unlike the First Concerto, which is largely symphonic in conception and style, the Second Concerto highlights moments of transparency, more reminiscent of chamber music than the acreage of a concert hall. For example, the concerto’s opening features an intimate dialogue between a single horn and the piano soloist; the third movement opens with a long and lyrical melody for the principal cellist couched within a gentle accompaniment; the finale is full of joie-de-vivre, somewhat akin to the skipping rondos of W.A. Mozart and Josef Haydn.
So what did Brahms himself think of his creation? Here we have a small problem because he enjoyed irony and self-deprecation. To his friend, Elizabeth von Herzogenberg, he wrote, ‘I have written a tiny little piano concerto with a mere wisp of a scherzo.’ Later he revealed to her the other side of his newest creation, describing it as ‘the Long Terror’. In most senses, it is not ‘small’. Its length is partly due to there being four rather than the more usual three movements. When the soloist throws caution to the winds, its weight becomes apparent, especially in the first movement where the writing for the left hand is particularly demanding. Yet the moments of delicacy are also memorable. The piano seems almost to be conducting love affairs with the orchestral instruments: with the horn at the opening; with the cello and clarinet in the third movement; and with everyone in the last. Malcolm Macdonald wrote:
In its massive chording, wide [finger] stretches, vigour, richness and textural variety, the piano writing is the most elaborate result of Brahms’s lifelong fascination with virtuoso technique. The soloist must … dominate with the utmost power at certain junctures, but other moments call for extreme delicacy and limpidity of touch…
This explains why the concerto strikes one as being so gigantic. Within its considerable length, it comprises a comprehensive range of techniques, moods and forms, some of which are heroic (but never bombastic), and others that are quiet and intimate.
Although the work as a whole is remarkably close-knit, we may gain more from viewing its exterior than from analysing its skeleton. All four movements are couched within recognisable forms and each of them makes its unique emotional impact. In a sense, they sing their own songs without a need for commentary. Even so, certain landmarks are too interesting to ignore. In the first movement, the opening melody provides the basic musical material for much that follows, and it returns in various guises to cement the unity that such a huge essay requires. The vigorous scherzo is no joke (even though ‘scherzo’ translates as ‘joke’) but its teeth-gritting minor mode and awkward rhythms surrender to an uplifting Handelian ‘trio’ section in D major, almost choral in character.
The song-like third movement is full of wistfulness. An exquisite cello solo has been noted, but we should also listen out for some enchanting solos for the clarinet occurring later on. Late in life, Brahms adapted the main theme of this movement as a sentimental song, Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer (‘My slumber grows ever more peaceful’). The last movement is something of a romp, the themes tumbling one upon another in a continuous display of invention and inspiration. Unlike concertos in which the soloist and orchestra seem to be pitched against each other as musical adversaries, this one is a triumph of musical cooperation, humour and affection. The last movement allows this partnership to prosper gloriously, to the delight of audiences and to the intense satisfaction of performers as well.