Brahms Piano
what happened when brahms had played his piano concerto in dminor why scandal what interval stretches it have?
To say that the Hamburg première of the Concerto op.15 amounted to a scandal would be saying way too much, compared with, for instance, that of Le Sacre du Printemps which certainly was one, and one close to a public brawl at that… 
Of the four initial outings Brahms made with the work, the very first in Hamburg was met with hissing and other displays of muted hostility, while the next two, in Hanover, were marked with blank incomprehension from a determinedly unmoved and unmovable audience. The final of the four initial outings for the work, back in Hamburg again, fared little better than the first, sealing the fate of the piece as ‘ugly’, ‘difficult’ and, in fairness rather more to the point, ‘unyielding’ for some considerable time to come. The published critical reaction, on all occasions, was unreservedly hostile and often outright damning.
(As one of the 3 concertos that made up that part of my finals in the late ’70s, it was still greeted by some sections of the audience ‘of a certain age’ with a determined unwillingness to be persuaded that it might be anything but ‘ugly’ and ‘difficult’. Some things have a very long half-life indeed..!)
Assuming you might, given your general preoccupations, be trying to grope your way towards the specifics of how large a grasp is demanded of the hands in the work, there’s nothing more exacting than the occasional tenth, and comparatively rather few of those at that. What, among many things, are exacting are the insistent, high-power, octave trills when executed exactly as written (as compared with the frequent fudging of them by executing them ‘blind’ in alternating hands seen nowadays) that litter the first movement throughout. The draining qualities of this work for *all* performers have to be sought elsewhere, in the intense & unremitting musical demands supporting a towering, granite-hewn architecture, and some highly intricate ensemble work between all forces…
All the best,
Rubinstein – Brahms, Piano Concerto No.1 – I Maestoso (1/3)
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Johannes Brahms Photo Mugs Johannes Brahms at the piano. Hand-colored halftone reproduction of a charcoal drawing…. |
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Johannes Brahms, German composer Photo Mugs Johannes Brahms, German composer and musician, seen here as a young man, sitting at a grand piano. …. |
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Johannes Brahms, German composer Photo Mugs Johannes Brahms, German composer and musician. Seen here in profile, playing a grand piano. …. |
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