Performers
Programme
The opening of Johannes Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1 is rough and tumble. The opening theme is said to have been a disturbed reaction to Robert Schumann's confused leap into the Rhine. Brahms found it difficult to come to terms with this experience, as he did with the composition of the concerto. It was first conceived as a sonata for two pianos, then as a symphony, and finally as a symphonic piano concerto. It contains a tribute to Robert and Clara Schumann, hidden mainly in the lyrical sections. The first performance in Hanover was described as a 'respectable success', the repeat performance in Leipzig's Gewandhaus as a 'disaster'.
Today, Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 is not to be missed - and we are looking forward to the interpretation of the young American Maxim Lando, who is making his debut in the museum concerts.
Just as Robert Schumann had heralded the young Johannes Brahms as 'the master who would be called upon to express the highest expression of the time in an ideal manner', so Brahms later supported the young Antonín Dvořák and recommended him to his publisher Simrock, and the two formed a lifelong friendship. Before their first meeting, Dvořák had already composed four symphonies, which are less well known than the five that followed, but the Prague premiere of the Fourth Symphony was already a success and is now regarded as an important step on Dvořák's way to becoming one of the great Romantic symphonists.
(Frankfurter Museums-Gesellschaft e.V.)