Johannes Brahms
Piano Concerto No. 2

“Well, maybe it’s time for something different,” Johannes Brahms concluded laconically after the fiasco that followed a performance of his new First Piano Concerto in 1859 Leipzig. With this monumental work in D minor, he had pushed the boundaries of balance to breaking-point, much to the audience’s audible displeasure. Yet he took it in his stride: “I’m only trying, and feeling my way.” Brahms wanted to turn rejection into motivation – and he did, even if that “something different” would take another two decades to materialise. 

Throughout his oeuvre, Brahms often created pairs of contrasting yet complementary works within the same genre: the sombre, tragic First Symphony was followed by the (at least outwardly) cheerful Second; the elegiac Third Symphony by the more vigorous Fourth. Similarly, the stormy, youthful first piano concerto is juxtaposed with the more serene and reflective second in B-flat major. What unites the two is their extraordinary scale. While the opening movement of the D minor concerto, lasting more than 20 minutes, may be longer than that of the newer work, the latter surpasses its predecessor in its sheer number of bars by more than a third. Brahms took no small pride in this, boasting to conductor Franz Wüllner (albeit with his characteristic self-deprecating irony): “It can stand its ground with any other! I believe it’s the longest –!”

Of course, it wasn’t the length that mattered to Brahms. The work’s dimensions arise from his attempt to express all that is essential, with the balance that demands, in order to create a major composition for piano and orchestra that would unite the divergent goals of symphony and concerto. The solo instrument is neither a glittering monarch ruling over vast territories, nor a shy wallflower. While Brahms had restrained the emotional outbursts of his first concerto, he did not suppress the simmering tension beneath the surface of the second.

Completed in 1881 during a summer retreat in the Vienna Woods, the work begins with a call from the solo horn, promptly answered by the piano. Brahms thus deviates from the classical form, in which the orchestra makes the opening statement, only later passing the torch to the solo instrument. Here, the piano opens by spanning almost the entire tonal range with an unhurried confidence, as if taking the listener gently by the hand, introducing them to the spectrum of sound and emotion. It then embarks on a densely-composed solo passage, pushing the limits of playability. In the orchestral exposition that follows, Brahms immediately employs his typical techniques of motivic development: rhythmic displacement, fragmentation, recombination, and expansion.

Brahms follows the relatively moderate opening movement with a dramatic counterpart in the form of the Allegro appassionato placed second, thereby – for the first time in a solo concerto – expanding the structure to four movements. This is followed by an idyllic slow movement, with a breathtakingly beautiful melody introduced by the solo cello. (Brahms would later incorporate this melody into his song Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer.) However, the idyll does not remain unclouded: the piano intrudes with loud trills and jagged motifs, setting off a wistful central section. The finale, by contrast, dances along with a carefree air, meandering through Hungarian inflections before surging towards a rousing final coda.