| ›Acts of Liberation‹
Johannes Brahms
Concerto for piano and orchestra in B flat major op. 83
Symphony No. 2 in D major op. 73
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1st Première Subscription Concert
10-01-2008, 8:00 PM
Bremen, The Glocke
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| Soloists
| Elisabeth Leonskaja, Piano
Lothar Zagrosek, Conductor
| Program
| Typically Brahms — even when something was successful, he spoke disparagingly of it. He ›wrote a little piano concerto with a delicate little Scherzo.‹ Naturally, that was an unfounded understatement; no one before him carried the fusion of piano and orchestra further. The solo part of his Piano Concerto No. 2 proved to be demanding. Yet Brahms also wanted to demonstrate that pianistic delicacy and compositional demands are compatible. The work was a success even at its premiere, despite its formal originality. As we know, Brahms took his time with his symphonic debut. If his First Symphony still shows signs of an arduous, long-distance duel with the overwhelming Beethoven, the Second seems more relaxed. The symphonic development grows out of a motivic core. Not the idea itself, but its development determines the architecture of the work. Condemned as the leader of the conservatives, Brahms was a progressive, as not only Schoenberg believed. The chamber music-like thinking of his orchestral works is considered a virtue today.
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