Piano Concerto No. 1 (Brahms)

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Johannes Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor (Op. 15) is one of Brahms' most famous and frequently performed pieces. A concerto on nearly every major pianist's repertoire, it presents considerable technical challenges to the performer.

Brahms worked on the composition for some years, as was the case with many of his works. After a prolonged gestation period, it was first performed on January 22, 1859 in Hanover, Germany; Brahms was just 25 years old. 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!"

Brahms originally conceived the work as a sonata for two pianos. Seeking a grander and fuller sound, Brahms later orchestrated the work in an attempt to transform it into a four-movement symphony. However, he found this also unsatisfactory. Brahms ultimately decided that he had not sufficiently mastered the nuances of orchestral color to sustain a symphony, and he relied on his skills as a pianist and as a composer for the piano to complete the work as a concerto. Brahms only retained the original material from the work's first movement; the remaining movements were discarded, and two new ones were provided to yield a work in the more usual 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, Robert Schumann. Brahms finished the concerto two years after 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 third movement of the concerto, for example, is very clearly modeled on the third movement of Beethoven's third piano concerto. 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' artistic temperament, but it may also reflect the concerto's embryonic symphonic ambitions.

Although a work of Brahms' 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:

I. Maestoso

The first movement is in sonata form, divided into four sections: exposition, the developmental section, recapitulation and conclusion. The mighty introduction, inspired by the opening movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony, is one of the most monumental introductions which has appeared in a piano concerto. Following this introduction is a short mysterious section, which soon builds up to mighty fanfare, followed by another decrescando and the entry of the piano. The fanfare builds itself up again as the entire piece of music comes crashing down. The developmental section then opens up with a short motif, which is repeated again in the later part of the concerto. Towards the end, the introductory theme springs up again, played by the piano, after which the orchestra combines with the piano to give a triumphant, majestic conclusion in tonic chords.