The opening sounds of the Brahms Piano Concerto #1 are meant to disturb, a stark jab of sound dominated by timpani, followed by string passages that seem to pull in different directions, as though struggling for air.
Things continue in this vein until the lyrical second theme is introduced, a lullaby, still in the minor mode, but growing ever more reflective, deliberate in pace, and descending toward silence.
Later the soloist begins to develop everything heard to this point. When at last the orchestra reaches a peak of agitation, the soloist enters with the gestures heard at the work’s outset, as the strings ripped apart the sonic texture.
Aside from those super-powered first gestures, so much of this movement is quiet and reflective, dominated by a dreamlike sense of the dance, where you and your unidentifiable partner are the only ones on the floor. This is not the neurotic music it is sometimes made out to be. It is the honest statement of someone who at the age of twenty-five already knew that certain realities cannot be changed.
The quietly passionate second movement could not be more unlike the first. As this movement opens, listen to the wind figures that accompany the serene string writing. This is a clue to how Brahms structures accompaniments not simply as decorative devices, but to deepen and intensify his statement.
The confident final movement emerges into sunlight. We are back in the world of dance, but we have left the ballroom of dreams for the theater of the real world.
Listen now to this profound work, much of it written to express Brahms’ love for Clara Schumann:
