Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat Major, opus 83
GINA BACHAUER,, pianist
STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSK\
conducting the London Symphony Orchestra
“leith had just turned forty- eight when he began applying the finish-
ing touches to his second piano concerto, an activity which domi-
nated the months of spring and early summer of 1881 and which thus
~dates securely within one of the most untroubled and relaxed periods
of his life. Personally as well as publicly, his affairs had been going
well, since, during recent years, his clumsily unintentioned but irascibly
sharp tongue had alienated comparatively few friends either among a
legion of those newly-acquired or that handful which had remained
long-termed and doggedly loyal in their sometimes strained relation-
ships with him. In fact, he had actually begun to bask in the warmth
of the sort of sustaining friendships which his genuinely’ generous
nature should have drawn for him formerly, but which bumbling sar-
casm and a kind of mastodonic gruffness had often precluded. Of late,
he had also learned to take both life and composing just a bit less
seriously, even to the extent of “letting go’’ and hying off, after the
bleakness and bustle of northern winters, to “enjoy the miracle of an
Italian spring,’’ meantime contenting himself to let notes. fall upon
manuscript ‘‘when and will they must.”
The fact that Brahms’s position as one of the most important com-
posers of his time was already established beyond cavilling probably
lay at the very heart of the reason behind the untroubledness of this
period of his life.
The reasons for his slowness in maturing into mastery are too many
to detail in the space at hand. Prime among them, of course, lies the
fact that Brahms was congenitally a painstakingly slow, ruminative sort
of creative craftsman. But hovering above all remains the weighty fac-
tor of the very burden of responsibility for ‘‘the future of music’”’ which
the Schumanns, Liszts, and Joachims had assigned to him. At first,
each new work of Brahms’s was automatically an all-too public test of
his abilities, watched for with lively interest by the musically informed
circles of Germany and Austria-Hungary—with many members of those
cliquish, cabalistic circles more desirous of hearing the young man fail
than fulfill. Then, as accomplishment piled upon accomplishment, the
situation grew to the point that noted Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick
could open a review of the 1876 premiere of Brahms’s first symphony
accurately with the statement: ‘“‘Seldom, if ever, has the entire musical
world awaited a composer’s first symphony with such tense anticipa-
tion.’’ Such was the success of that symphony, however, that many of
even the most stubborn of Brahms’s.detractors could no longer carp
about the power of the individualistic techniques which he had devel-
oped in his self-announced, controversial retreat back from contempo-
rary ‘‘romantic”’ tendencies toward a “‘new classicism’ ” where he might
find himself ‘‘a place in Beethoven’s domain of art.’
The levelling sweep of the first symphony, impelled further . the
cordial reception of a second two years later, provided a most signifi-
cant pivot point in Brahms’s life and career. Overnight, the ranks of his
critics thinned; he began to turn a comfortable living from both the sale
of his music and ever-increasing demand for his appearances as a pian-
ist or conductor; and that late-achieved mellowing of personality began
te make itself felt. Allow the span of four years for the effects of such
fortune, event and change to ripen and one can begin to understand
something of the qualities of security, comfort and happiness which
suffused the creative and emotional clime in which the second piano
concerto came into being. Admittedly, such an approach smacks of
amateur psychologizing, but it seems more than valid if it provides
an important clue to the reasons why this composition seems un-
matched among all of Brahms’s major works in its brimful-to-over-
flowing qualities of unstudied power, spontaneous vitality, spacious
poetry, magisterial sensitivity, and sheer loveliness of effect.
The seeds of thought from which the second piano concerto sprang
were nurtured by the bright April sun of Italy. The year was 1878 and
the visit the first of eight which the composer was to make to “‘that
glorious land where everything is lovely.’”” He began to sketch the piece
upon his return home in May and, according to one of his intimates,
kept before him ‘always the vision of an Italian spring shedding its
immemorial beauty over the valleys and groves and hill slopes of the
haunted south.” This intelligence might seem. purplishly romantic to-
day, but citation of it does not seem idle when one ~oints the fact that
Brahms did not hasten on with developing this promising work, instead
setting his burgeoning sketches aside not to take them up again until
three years later in 1881 when he could once more delight in watching
Italian landscapes slipping out of spring into summer and “‘be charmed
with everything. ’’ Then, the work galloped toward final. form. By the
first week in July the score was finished.
Friends who studied the manuscript were cenotalle impressed, but.-
several expressed concern over the ambitious thrust and sp awling
scope of the work. Inevitably, such reactions began to build simila
doubts in Brahms’s own mind. Had he over-reached himself? He knew
well that he haa attempted many things innovatingly new and daringly
per- nal in this piece which he now began to term with somewhat: :pon-
derous, rueful humor “a tiny, tiny piano concerto with a tiny, tiny wisp.
of = sche zo.’”’ Firstly, whether consciously or not, he had infused the
work with a seriousness of intellectual content which had the effect of |
rais..1g the form of a concerto to a plane approximating that: of a sym
phony. Next, though he had designed a solo part which. demanded the
utmost in virtuosity (as well as intellectual depth) from its performer,
he . ad willfully eschewed any expressive device which even: hinted of
technical display as an end unto itself. Here he was definitely flying in
the face cf the tastes of the times which tended toward a type of super-
ficial ‘‘entertainment’’ concerto in which the soloist, pitted in dialogue
age'nst or merely accompanied by an orchestra, could show off as
fully as possible the range and prodigiousness of his digital prowess.
Rather than op,osing soloist to orchestra, Brahms had fused the two
together throughout ti:e very tissue of the concerto’s abstract.and struc-
tural musical ic-as. Trey were conceived of as complete equals capable
of the mosi intiisate reciprocity of ideas and quite mutually responsible .
for carrying the burden of the work’s intellectual content. Remarked
Brahms himself of the piano part: “It is decidedly not fo: little: girls!”
The unique shape and ideology of the concerto were undoubtedly
decided by the fact that Brahms had written it for his personal use in
concertizing. He probably would have written quite differently had the
piece been commissioned by one of the typical virtuosi of the day.
Whatever the case, as the date in autumn of 1881 when he had agreed
to introduce the work came on, more doubts as to its merits mounted
in his mind. He now referred to it as “‘the long terror,’’ reportedly won-
dering if the piano concerto form might not be one he would never
master. (His brooding, austere, to-some-still-today structurally miscal-
culated first piano concerto remained as his only major work till then
which had failed to find a wide usage and an enthusiastic audience.)
But, at this point, an event unique in musical history occurred. Hans
von Bulow, the noted pianist then also engaged experimentally in rais-
ing the techniques of orchestral conductor from the level of an artisan
to that of an artist, offered to place himself and the excellent orchestra
of the princely Court of Meiningen at the composer’s disposal for test
rehearsals. Since the concerto’s premiére was officially scheduled in
Budapest on November 9, no public concert was implied. However, the
orchestra was available to the composer’s private purposes throughout
October by the cultured grace of the Duke. Fortune had siniled; a wor-
ried but grateful Brahms accepted.
Quickly, the smali but select coterie cf fortunate rehearsal attendees
at the Meiningen testings reassured Brahms that his concerto was as
fine as anything he had yet composed. They found the hitherto frighten-
ingly long first movement sprang from manuscript into living sound as
a delightfully developed rhapsody, straightforward in effect yet richly
varied in its myriad profusion of imaginative touches. The second sec-
tion, that ‘‘tiny, tiny. wisp ot a scherzo,’’ revealed elements deliciously
reminiscent of Brahms’s ballades for solo piano or, in the later words
of the composer’s biographer Walter Niemann: “idyllic, pleasing and
meditative ... equipped with Beethoven's intellectual power and Schu-
mann’s rush of passionate e‘notion.” The third, slow movement showed
itself to be so wondrous in its variety as to be able to take on with
accuracy such eventual descriptives from notable sources as: ‘“‘gravely
amorous,” ‘‘devoutly religious, serenely uplifted,” ‘‘voluptuously suave.”
And the last movement seemed to top the whole in perfect balance with
a show of gay, folklike spirit which Brahms admitted good-humoredly
was spiced with a paprika dash of ‘‘Zigeuner citations.”
Brahms drew confidence from the Meiningen rehearsals and swung
off cheerfully on his fall concert turn through central Europe, conquer-
ing almost all who heard him with the charm and power of his concerto
and meanwhile establishing it at once as one of his most immediately
appealing, durably attractive works. There have been some since in
high places who have not hesitated to deem it the greatest piano con-
certo ever written. !f personal taste does not permit them to admit quite ©
that degree, there are few today who can deny it a prime ranking as
one of the works of its genre most individually conceived and master-
fully achieved.
NOTFS BY EDWARD COLE
ABOUT GINA BACHAUER
Gina Bachauer’s pianistic prowess has brought music critics to a
happy but unaccustomed degree of unanimity in describing her per-
formances; at some point, they almost invariably turn to the word:
grandeur. She has been hailed in the New York Times as “‘a pianist in
the grand style of the nineteenth-century virtuoso tradition.’’ Harold
Schonberg, in that paper, has praised her ‘‘performa..ces on a grand
scale,’ while Miles Kastendieck of the New York Journal-American has
noted that ‘‘Miss Bachauer plays in the grand manner with a communi-
cative sense of authority.”
Mme. Bachauer’s present eminence has been attained through tri-
umphs over circumstance that are comparable to her formidable ac-
complishments as a performer. Born and educated in Athens, she
_yielded to parental pressure to the extent of studying law for two years
while she concurrently pursued her dominant musical interests. She
ultimately won permission to study in Paris with Alfred Cortot and later
with Sergei Rachmaninoff, and had arrived at the threshold of a bril-
liant performing career when a family financial crisi. obliged her to
return to her native city. There she taught at the Athens Conservatory,
studying and practicing at night in anticipation of the renewed concert
venture which she ultimately launched. No sooner had she done so,
however, than the outbreak of the Second World War marooned her in
Cairo.
With no prospect of moving from there, she began concertizing for
the Allied armed forces in the Middle East and played some 630 con-
certs for them before V-E Day. At the war’s end she went to London as
a completely unknown performer, only to conquer the British musical
world with her very first concert. In 1950, Mme. Bachauer duplicated
this feat in the United States, where her début recital, attended only
by relatively few cognoscenti, made her a celebrity overnight.
In the dozen years since she first performed in this country, Mme.
Bachauer has won a place among the handful of distinguished pianists
of our time with magniloquence that recalls the virtuosi of an almost
legendary past.
MERCURY records on 35-mm. magnetic film
Mercury’s famous Living Presence recording techifique: developed
more than ten years ago, is still setting the pace for quality and fidelity
in recorded reproduction. The use of 35-mm. magnetic film, with its
additional width, extra thickness and faster rate of speed, has even >
further refined and extended frequency range and transient response
while cutting background noise to an irreducible minimum. Like all
LIVING PRESENCE recordings, these works were recorded with ex-
tremely sensitive omnidirectional microphones (three for stereo, one
for mono) hung in front of the orchestra at the beginning of the session,
tested for balance, and then never moved. Likewise, the volume con-
trols on the recording machines were adjusted by means of level checks
at the start, and then never moved. In this way Mercury recordings pre-
serve the entire dynamic gamut of a real performance, and the listener
hears the music just as he would at a live concert. . . better, in ‘act,
because the microphones are :iung in the focal point of the auditorium,
an optimum position where no seat could ever be.
This Mercury LIVING PRESENCE STEREO record makes availabie te the
disc-buying public an exciting new listening experience. The u © of
the MARGIN CONTROL system of variable groove s-acing i:1 Mercziry’s
LIVING PRESENCE monaural discs represented a major step in the
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PRESENCE STEREO record, thus enabling Mercury to produce a two-channel disc
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frequency range, and startling clarity and definition of instrumental timbres. This
Mercury LIVING PRESENCE STEREO record should be played according to the RIAA
standard witha stereo reproducing cartridge having a stylus tip not exceeding .7 mil.
_ COVER DESIGN BY GEORGE MAAS
‘PHOTO BY ANGUS MC BEAN
- PRINTED IN U.S.A.
Johannes Brahms
PIANC. CONCERTO NO. 2
in B FLAT MAJOR, OPUS 83
1. Allegro non troppo
2. Allegro appassionato
STEREO & MARGIN CONTROL
33% R.P.M. SIDE 1
GINA BACHAUER, pianist
STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI, conducting
THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
SR9IO301A
Johannes Brahms
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2
in B FLAT MAJOR, OPUS 83
3. Andante
Violoncello Solo—Kenneth Heath
4. Allegretto grazioso
STEREO e MARGIN CONTROL
33% RPM. SIDE 2
GINA BACHAUER, pianist
STANISLAW SKROWACZEWSKI, conducting
THE LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
$R90301B
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