The Brahms Piano Concerto #1 is, for me, like a Symphony for Piano and orchestra. In fact, at its origin the composer planned it as a piece for two pianos. He soon realized that he conceived it as a much larger work.
This Concerto is an awesome piece of work, and it remains so even 150 years later.
The Maestoso first movement opens with amazing sounds as clarinets, bassoons, timpani, violas, and basses sustain an opening note, and then violins and cellos announce the melody with strong accents and trills. Before long the other winds are added, 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 again to make way for the solo piano, which enters with a hushed theme. As thematic materials are traded back and forth during the 20-plus minutes of this movement, we can only marvel at how well-suited each element seems, both to the orchestra and to the keyboard.
After the struggles that mark the first movement, the Adagio is quite different. “I am painting a gentle portrait of you,” wrote Brahms of this music to Clara Schumann, whose husband Robert had died in 1856. There is a devotional aspect to the music that most likely reflects the composer’s appreciation of the “ancient” masters.
The final rondo starts by the piano alone, and it combines the rhythmic vigor which would become a regular feature of his concerto finales.
Here is pianist Helene Grimaud to show you the amazing aspects of this piece:
