“A second one will sound very different,” wrote Johannes Brahms to violinist Joseph Joachim, about the disastrous reception in Leipzig of his First Piano Concerto. More than twenty years would pass before there was a second one. They were full years. Brahms had settled in Vienna and given up conducting and playing the piano as regular activities and sources of his livelihood.
To the young Brahms, Beethoven had been inspiration and model, but also a source of daunting inhibition. Fully aware of what he was doing and what it meant, Brahms waited until his forties before he sent into the world any string quartets or a first symphony, both being genres peculiarly associated with Beethoven. In sum, the Brahms of the Second Piano Concerto was a master, confident and altogether mature.
It was the last work Brahms added to his repertory as a pianist, and for someone who had long given up regular practicing to get through it at all is amazing. After the premiere, Brahms took the work on an extensive tour of Germany with Hans von Bülow and the superb Meiningen Orchestra.
Here is Yuja Wang to play this music for you:
