4/14/08 11:49 PMChicago Symphony Orchestra - Program Notes - Brahms Piano Concerto 1

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Johannes Brahms

Born May 7, 1833, Hamburg, Germany.Died April 3, 1897, Vienna, Austria.

Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15

When Johannes Brahms was twenty years old, hesummoned the courage to present himself at the homeof Robert and Clara Schumann, the first couple ofmusic. To his relief, the Schumanns were the perfecthosts, and Robert was genuinely overwhelmed once thisodd young man—shy, boyish, and nearsighted—sat downat their piano to play his own music.

Schumann was so deeply moved that he came out ofretirement as a critic to introduce Brahms to the musicworld. "Even outwardly," Schumann writes of thatafternoon in September 1853, "he bore the marksproclaiming: 'This is a chosen one.'" Clara also wasimpressed, although perhaps it was something elseabout this tall, delicate man with the flowing blond hairand poetic eyes that caught her attention. Withinmonths, she and Brahms would play duets at that samekeyboard, cautiously launching, then more deeplycementing, a relationship that sometimes dared to bemore than friendship.

In 1853, Robert and Clara were happily married, theproud parents of six young children (a seventh wouldarrive the following year), and celebrated musicians.Robert was one of the leading composers of the day,although he was destined to write no more importantmusic. Clara somehow found time to maintain herreputation as a profound and thoughtful pianist whileraising the children, and, despite social convention, tocompose as well. But in February 1854, Robert suddenlybegan to suffer miserably from syphilis. Pain alternatedwith delirium, and he frequently experienced auditoryand visual hallucinations. On February 27, while Clarawas out running errands, he left the house and threwhimself off a bridge into the Rhine. He was rescued byfishermen and taken home, but within the week he wasadmitted to the asylum in nearby Endenich, where he

Brahms

Piano Concerto No. 1

More information

Composition History

Brahms's first sketches forthis concerto date back to1854. He completed the workearly in 1858 and was thesoloist at the first privateperformance on March 30,1858, in Hanover, as well asat the first publicperformance on January 22,1859, also in Hanover. Theorchestra consists of twoflutes, two oboes, twoclarinets, two bassoons, fourhorns, two trumpets,timpani, and strings.Performance time isapproximately forty-eightminutes.

Performance History

The Chicago SymphonyOrchestra's first subscriptionconcert performances ofBrahms's First Piano Concertowere given at the AuditoriumTheatre on March 2 and 3,1900, with Leopold Godowskyas soloist and TheodoreThomas conducting. Our mostrecent subscription concertperformances were given atOrchestra Hall on May 11, 12,and 13, 2006, with EmanuelAx as soloist and Christophvon Dohnányi conducting. TheOrchestra first performed thisconcerto at the RaviniaFestival on July 31, 1945,with Leon Fleisher as soloistand Leonard Bernsteinconducting, and most

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4/14/08 11:49 PMChicago Symphony Orchestra - Program Notes - Brahms Piano Concerto 1

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would die two and a half years later.

This would have been an even more difficult time forClara if Brahms hadn't returned to Düsseldorf to be withher. We don't know for certain what transpired overthese months. Brahms went to visit Robert in theasylum periodically, but Clara was not allowed to seehim. On Robert's birthday in 1856, Brahms found himmaking alphabetical lists of towns and countries.Finally, on July 17, Clara went along with Brahms, andfor the first time in more than two years, saw the sadspectacle of her husband. Two days later, RobertSchumann died.

What all this had to do with Brahms's music was notclear at first. In 1853, when he visited the Schumanns,he had nothing but chamber music and piano pieces tohis credit, and during the next four years he didn'tventure into other genres. But Brahms was strugglingwith the urge to say something grand and important,and he secretly was itching to command the richresources of a full orchestra. In March 1854, Brahmsheard Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for the first time,and the impact of that still-revolutionary soundingmusic threw him off track. It would be twenty-twoyears before he would complete a symphony of hisown, although more and more that was what he mostwanted to do.

One of the pieces that Brahms and Clara playedtogether during these months of uncertainty was a bigsonata for two pianos that he had begun as early asthe spring of 1854, shortly after Robert wasinstitutionalized. This music would take nearly fouryears to find its ideal form; at times Brahms believedhis sonata was becoming a symphony, despite theintimidating shadow of Beethoven, and at others, aconcerto in Beethoven's key of D minor. By now, as headmitted to Clara and wrote to his friend, thecelebrated violinist Joseph Joachim, he realized thathe needed more than two pianos to satisfy his musicalimpulses. Brahms continued to struggle with his sonata—parts of it were scored for full orchestra and sent toJoachim for his verdict. One movement was eventuallydiscarded and ended up, considerably reworked, in theGerman Requiem. In 1857, he wrote to Joachim, "Ihave no judgment about this piece anymore, nor anycontrol over it."

What finally emerged from the doubt and difficulty wasa big piano concerto in D minor, Brahms's first majororchestral work. (The two serenades, which date fromthe same time, are sketches in comparison.) TheHanover premiere, on January 22, 1859, with thecomposer at the piano, was well received, but theperformance in Leipzig a few days later was a disaster.Brahms took it in stride: "I think it's the best thing thatcould happen to one—it forces you to collect yourthoughts and it raises your courage. After all, I'm stilltrying and groping."

The concerto, however, was a mature and fully finishedwork even then, and although Brahms talked about

conducting, and mostrecently on August 5, 2005,with Tzimon Barto as soloistand Christoph Eschenbachconducting.

For the record

The Chicago SymphonyOrchestra recorded Brahms'sFirst Piano Concerto in 1954with Artur Rubinstein, underFritz Reiner, for RCA; in 1979with Lazar Berman, underErich Leinsdorf, for CBS; andin 1983 with Emanuel Ax,under James Levine, for RCA.

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reworking its structure, in the end he only touched upsome details. It is a powerful and dramatic score, andit bears the imprint of Brahms's grief over RobertSchumann's breakdown and death, as well as theconflict and the passion of his growing relationship withClara.

Brahms begins with a menacing timpani roll and afierce unison theme. There is not only drama in thisopening, but also ambiguity, for over the first low D,the strings suggest not D minor, but B-flat major. Itwill take several pages before Brahms (already amaster of long-range planning) unequivocallyestablishes D minor as the concerto's presiding tonality.He marks each of the crucial moments in the sonata-form design with something unexpected, so that we notonly take notice, but stop and think. For example, thesoloist does not begin with the powerful first theme,but instead enters alone, commanding our attentionwith quiet and eloquent new music. (It is, in fact, notnew, but a transformation of the immediatelypreceding orchestral music.) And when the pianistarrives at F major—the movement's primary harmonicdestination—Brahms introduces a majestic, veryexpansive truly new theme that he has been saving justfor the occasion. (Joachim, who once suggested thatBrahms compose a theme that was "appropriatelymagnificent . . . commensurately elevated andbeautiful" at this point, must have been particularlypleased.)

The biggest surprise comes at the most dramaticmoment in any sonata-form movement, the start of therecapitulation, when the opening music and the mainkey are reunited. Here Brahms disrupts ourexpectations by following the fierce timpani roll on Dwith the piano entering emphatically in E major, as ifthe soloist's hands simply landed on the wrong keys.Although this large movement was often shaped by therhetoric and demeanor of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony,each masterstroke here is entirely Brahms's own.

The glorious, rapt Adagio has been interpreted aseither a homage to Robert or an ode to Clara, but insome sense, it is both, with music being every bit ascomplicated as life. The piano line, by turnsmeditative, rhapsodic, impassioned, and evenaggressive, never resorts to sheer display. (As Americanpianist William Mason commented after watchingBrahms perform, "It was the playing of a composer, notthat of a virtuoso.") The brief cadenza is all the morecaptivating for being soft and slow.

Joachim enjoyed the "pithy bold spirit of the firsttheme" of the finale and admired the subsequent"intimate and soft B-flat major passage." The entirerondo is carried by the immense energy of its maintheme, although near the end Brahms makes room formore than one cadenza, followed by what Joachimcalled "the solemn reawakening toward a majesticclose."

Phillip Huscher is the program annotator for the

4/14/08 11:49 PMChicago Symphony Orchestra - Program Notes - Brahms Piano Concerto 1

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Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Program notes copyright © 2008 by the ChicagoSymphony Orchestra. All Rights Reserved. Programnotes may not be printed in their entirety without thewritten consent of Chicago Symphony Orchestra;excerpts may be quoted if due acknowledgment isgiven to the author and to Chicago SymphonyOrchestra. For reprint permission, contact DeniseWagner, Program Editor, by mail at: Chicago SymphonyOrchestra, 220 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois60604, or by email.

These notes appear in galley files and may containtypographical or other errors. Programs and artistssubject to change without notice.

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