Reference Recordings: Brahms Piano Concerto Cycles

Brahms: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 and 2. Emil Gilels (piano), Berlin Philharmonic, Eugen Jochum (cond.) DG

Hello friends this is Dave herwitz executive editor at classicstoday.com here with reference recordings and today we’re talking about the brahs piano caneros sets both of them as Cycles this is really a little tricky and again like all of these these these talks and I keep repeating this over and over again

So much of the interest is getting to probe the discographic history of these pieces and see why the reference became the reference and this is really a very interesting interesting story because there were lots of opportunities for reference recordings but somehow um we never really coalesced the consensus never quite coales until we

Got to yoham and Gil’s on Deutsche gramophone now these were recorded 1972 um and yeah 1972 and you know I that’s it’s a long time to wait you think for Major Works of Brahms but not when you understand where we were with them and what the history was because in addition to

Having a reference recording for the pair there are also reference recordings for each conero individually and therein lies a tale so let’s let’s go through it just a little bit let’s start first of all the two ceros were never equally popular number two was always more popular than number

Number one um and as a result of that there were usually more recordings of number two out there whereas number one was considered something a little bit of a specialty piece now in the 1950s and early 60s the market for number one was dominated not by a

Pianist but by a conductor by George cell who recorded it with Clifford kerzon Ona Rudolph cirin and Leon fer all of them and he owned the accompaniment to brahs coner number one he really did I mean it was really extraordinary and so you had to get one of them with cell but the

Three pianists who were all excellent really First Rate musicians and they were competing with themselves in some respects because well feser only did it once of course but cirin did them twice he did them with cell and he did them with ormandy and ormandy was no slouch

Either even in the first he was a wonderful bronze conductor terribly underrated and of course one of the great accompanists that ever lived and so and so these performances which were very very highly regarded by everybody I mean even if people didn’t like fer because it was America they they could

Like cirin and certainly Clifford kerson and then other people did the second for example sfat salaf RoR I mean RoR did the second but not the first so it was very hard to come to a consensus on what the best brahs conero cycle was you you were there were many choices for

Individual performances and of course those will be the subject of future videos um believe you me they shall but really it was a complicated thing so so that’s what sort of dominated the universe in the 60s of course there were others too there was always Claud oral there were other great pianists

Recording these pieces but you know claudo oral one of your the commentators always said why haven’t you mentioned Cloud oral for these like solo works that we were talking about and I I I I was thinking about that because he’s like one of my favorite pianists ever

And I love like his entire Phillips Legacy I think it’s stunning and there are some amazing pieces which you know performances which could well serve as references but there was also a school that regarded him as excessively serious um somewhat for square and and for that

Reason reason I I he just never seemed to get the sort of universal Acclaim that he probably deserved first he wasn’t terribly four square but he was very serious and he was extremely concerned with beauty of tone he had a very special sound um it wasn’t to all tastes let’s just put it

That way um and that’s just the way it was there’s no arguing with it it’s a fact it’s what it was but he was amazing so he recorded these works lots of people were doing that but it wasn’t it was a shortage it’s just that it was

Hard to come to a consensus pick until these showed up and this really this was really a wonderful moment I think in discographic history because I had been reading reviews now when this these showed up in in what 72 I was only I was only 12 11 or 12 so I I didn’t

Know anything about these pieces I really didn’t um I only started paying attention several years obviously later when I was in my late teens but that wasn’t such a long time after these came out and I went back because I was always curious about things you know our

Library had all the old high fidelities and stereo reviews and gramophones and all that stuff and I went back I read reviews and you know when I started to learn French I started reading them in French and I tried to learn them when I learned German I read them in German you

Know I I went back and I wanted to see what people were saying and the fascinating thing about what I discovered you know sort of doing this as part of my work as an actual critic and having to you know pick reference recordings and come out with things like

This was that when these came out everything just coalesced around them you know all of the there were wonderful reviews of lots of other performances and people were recommending PR Cycles but this was the one that really solidified the the universe of classical music critics and I think listeners also

You know you yam was the most underrated brahs conductor who ever lived because his brahs is stunning it’s as great as anybody’s and he did two brah Cycles there’s the mono one with Berlin and then the the stereo one with what is it London Phil or the Phil it’s London Phil

I think um or London Symphony one of the other I I don’t remember but it doesn’t matter it was on Emi um now Warner and they’re they’re great they’re just incredibly he had you know fort flang fort wangler’s flexibility of pulse with none of his problems with orchestral

Discipline um and pulling an orchestra together and my God these things were great so when he did the accompaniments you knew that first of all you had a conductor Who was every bit as as as worthy of the music worthy as a partner in these incredibly symphonic and

Charity where the piano and the orchestra are on absolutely equal basis throughout um you had an ideal bronze conductor and gilels well gilels was a legend wasn’t RoR of course he was considered to be sort of more more sturdy and sober and kind of grumpy you know but his Beethoven was the German

Standards were his thing Beethoven and brahs so it was it was going to be exciting to hear him do the two brahm’s kerity and indeed it was and to do them with yoh you just finally had a pairing that was going to be able to deliver equally fabulous results in both

Keros you know I mean remember remember the controversy over pini’s first brah cycle the second Certo was with aato the first was with Carl burm and I remember everybody dumping all over Carl burm because they said he was just German Four Square stoty I actually liked bum

Because because the piece is a little German in four square and study and because and because bum did bring out that Grim dogged granitic is the word right element in the music that I thought was fine but for that reason because poenis had two separate conductors um you know there was a lot

Of of preference giving some people preferred the first most people preferred the second you know the two of them didn’t quite come together as a unified package I mean that’s kind of what happened with these pieces really kind of remarkable when you consider that there only two of them but they are

Such different works and and they require you know pianist of extraordinary depth of sensibility and a conductor who can be an absolute equal partner all the way through it was a tough job and um I just um it was a moment I just remember it like it was yesterday just reading all

These reviews all of a sudden everyone aha the reference recording y gal now since then there have been a bazillion brah cycles and some of them have just been excellent you know you had like who was Harden cour and po binder and you had Nelson frer and and and Shai and you

Had you know I mean some really really fine things popping around in addition to marvelous individual you know Singleton performances so it was very easy for this to get swallowed up in the ensuing flood because remember the 70s were the beginning of that insane period 20 30 years when the industry just went

Nuts and recorded everybody doing everything that they possibly could over and over and over and over and over and it was very hard to keep track of what the best versions were or what the reference recording was because the consensus that coalesced around these performances proceeded to fragment afterwards that’s what happens that’s

What happens with this stuff so if you didn’t catch this when it came out trust me this was a moment it was a historical moment in the discography of the brahs piano and and um if you listen to these you will very very readily understand why so

Keep on listening friends thanks so much for joining me take care