About this Piece

An extraordinary melding of musical heritage and progressive outlook made Brahms an overwhelming presence in the latter half of the 19th century and beyond. The New Grove Dictionary describes him as the “successor to Beethoven and Schubert in the larger forms of chamber and orchestral music, to Schubert and Schumann in the miniature forms of piano pieces and songs, and to the Renaissance and Baroque polyphonists in choral music,” adding that he “creatively synthesized the practices of three centuries with folk and dance idioms….” Most of these elements can be discerned in the composer’s monumental First Piano Concerto. 

The creation of this gigantic work, longer than Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto, occupied Brahms for at least five years. After beginning a two-piano sonata in 1854, he soon realized that the musical material required orchestral treatment. Following the wise decision to combine piano and orchestra, Brahms recast the opening as the first movement of a piano concerto; the other movements of the sonata were discarded (although one reappeared later in the composer’s German Requiem). A jaunty new finale was completed in late 1856, followed by the radiant slow movement, but the composer continued to make adjustments after the first performances of the concerto in January 1859. 

Considering the intensity of the work, it may not be surprising that a critic wrote that the concerto “cannot give pleasure,” lamenting that it contained “the shrillest dissonances and most unpleasant sounds,” following its second performance, in Leipzig. When compared with the bucolic rapture of the First and Second Serenades (Ops. 11 and 16), which Brahms composed from 1857 to 1858, the concerto is an uncompromising and awesome piece of work, and it remains so. 

The Maestoso first movement opens with a mighty noise: As clarinets, bassoons, timpani, violas, and basses sustain an ominous pedal note, violins and cellos declaim the melody with stabbing accents and menacing trills. Before long, the other winds are added to the violent assault, but then an espressivo variant lends an air of melancholy, with the theme eventually rising to an exalted register in the first violins. Another outburst, with horns reinforcing the theme, subsides to make way for the solo piano, which enters with one of the most understated themes in the concerto literature. There is a hushed, hesitant, almost stuttering quality, which makes it all the more surprising when the piano challenges the orchestra with its own ferocious statement of those menacing trills. As thematic materials are traded back and forth during the 20-plus minutes of this movement, each element is perfectly suited to the orchestra and to the keyboard. 

After the earthly struggles that mark the first movement, the Adagio is a world away. “I am painting a gentle portrait of you,” Brahms wrote to Clara Schumann, whose husband Robert died in 1856. There is a devotional aspect to the music that likely reflects the composer’s appreciation of masters such as Palestrina. Clara herself noted the movement’s “spiritual” quality. 

The final Rondo begins with the piano alone and has a structure resembling the finale of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto. The truth, as so often with Brahms, is that models and forms fade quickly in the bright light of the composer’s distinctive and charismatic personality. Combining the rhythmic vigor that would become a regular feature of his concerto finales with the “learned” style of the Baroque masters and an ample supply of virtuoso passagework, the music hints toward Brahms’ masterful set of Handel Variations, composed in 1861. —Dennis Bade