Piano Concerto No. 1 (Brahms)
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Johannes Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor (Op. 15) is described by some as a virtuoso's showcase. After a prolonged gestation period, like many of Brahms's compositions, it premiered on January 22, 1859 in Hanover, Germany. Five days later, at Leipzig, an unenthusiastic audience hissed at the concerto. In a letter to the renowned violinist Joseph Joachim, Brahms stated, "I am only experimenting and feeling my way", adding sadly, "all the same, the hissing was rather too much!"
The Piano Concerto in D minor, a work of Brahms's early maturity, did not start out as a concerto at all. Brahms struggled greatly with the work's instrumentation, conceiving it as a sonata for two pianos. Seeking a grander and fuller sound, Brahms orchestrated the work, transforming it into a symphony. However, he found this also unsatisfactory. He claimed to have gotten the idea to make it a piano concerto from a dream. The transformation from symphony to concerto took place over several strenuous years. Brahms ultimately decided that he had not sufficiently mastered the nuances of orchestral color to sustain a symphony and relied on his exceptional skills as a pianist and composer for the piano to complete the work as a concerto. Only the material from the symphony's first movement was retained for the concerto; the remaining three movements were scrapped and replaced with two new ones to round out the traditional three-movement concerto structure.
Brahms' biographers often note that the first sketches for this dramatic movement came quickly on the heels of the 1854 suicide attempt of the composer's friend and mentor life Schumann. Brahms finished the concerto on the third-year anniversary of the death of Schumann, and he was said to be madly in love with Schumann's widow, Clara Schumann. The degree to which Brahms' personal experience is embedded in the piece is hard to gauge since several other factors also influenced the musical expression of the piece. For example, the epic mood serves to link the work explicitly to the tradition of the Beethoven symphony Brahms sought to emulate. The work symbolizes Brahms' effort to try to combine pianistic effects with the orchestra, unlike earlier concertos, where the orchestra effectively accompanied the pianist. This style was later realized in Brahms' hugely popular Second Piano Concerto. This concerto also demonstrated Brahms' particular interest in scoring for the timpani and the horn, both of whose parts are notoriously difficult. For even the young Brahms, the concerto-as-showpiece had little appeal. Instead, he enlisted both orchestra and soloist in the service of the musical ideas; technically difficult passages in this concerto are never gratuitous but extend and develop the thematic material. Such an approach is thoroughly in keeping with Brahms's artistic temperament, but it may also reflect the concerto's embryonic symphonic ambitions.
The world had to wait nearly twenty years more for the appearance of Brahms's first symphony. Although a work of Brahms's youth, this concerto is a very mature work. As time passed, the work grew in popularity until it was recognized as a masterpiece. Most notable are the grand classical concepts and the thrilling technical difficulties at hand. Brahms' First Concerto is considered a work worthy of its master.
The concerto is divided into three movements:
1. Maestoso
2. Adagio
3. Rondo: Allegro non troppode:1. Klavierkonzert (Brahms) es:Concierto para piano nº 1 (Brahms) fr:Concerto pour piano n° 1 de Brahms ja:ピアノ協奏曲第1番 (ブラームス)
