Johannes Brahms began to make sketches for his second piano concerto in 1878. However, the composer preferred to try it out for a while before introducing it at major venues.
From the start the Concerto was well received, and Brahms performed it in twelve different cities ranging from Hungary to the Baltic during the winter of 1881–82 (including two performances with different orchestras in his old home town of Hamburg). The response must have been especially sweet after the chilly reception accorded the First Concerto so long before.
Throughout the Concerto Brahms reworks the traditional relationship between soloist and orchestra, so that his “classical” forms are anything but sterile repetitions of past composers.
So thoroughly and in so many original ways does the piano and orchestra interact that many commentators thought of the work as a “symphony with obbligato piano” rather than a concerto. But Brahms was simply expanding imaginatively on the concertos of Mozart and Beethoven, both of whom found many varied ways to combine the orchestra (or parts of it) with the soloist.
Judge for yourself utilizing the fine performance below:
