Brahms Archive

The piano soloist enters the composition with a waltz-like tune that will lead both to recollections of the opening and to meditation. Now a theme in the major mode offers respite in a chorale-like passage …

Johannes Brahms worked on the Second Piano Concerto for three years. He wrote to his good friend, Clara Schumann: “I want to tell you that I have written a very small piano concerto with a …

The Violin Concerto by Johannes Brahms was first performed in Leipzig, Germany, on New Year’s Day 1879 by Joseph Joachim, the dedicatee, who composed the cadenza that is still played by many violinists today. Brahms …

The Symphony #2 opens serenely as Brahms gives the horns, winds, and finally the strings a melody that certainly qualifies as serene. This melody grows out of three notes sounded by the basses and cellos, …

Pianist Helene Grimaud was born in 1969 in Aix-en-Provence, France, and she began her piano studies at the local conservatory with Jacqueline Courtin before going on to work with Pierre Barbizet in Marseille. She was …