Johannes Brahms

Brahms's Hungarian Dances began as piano-duet arrangements shaped by the performance traditions he encountered through violinist Ede Remenyi. They alternate flexible, slower gestures with more animated dance rhythms....

Brahms's Second Piano Concerto expands the usual three-movement concerto into four substantial movements. A horn call invites an early piano response, while the added scherzo contributes exceptional weight to the...

Brahms took many years to complete his First Symphony. Its opening introduces insistent timpani beneath lines moving in opposite directions, establishing a dense and concentrated musical argument. The finale begins...

Brahms wrote his Second Symphony during a summer stay at Portschach in 1877. Its opening bass figure supplies material that recurs in different forms across the first movement. The four movements allow lyrical...

Brahms's Third Symphony begins with a compact rising figure whose notes and harmonic tensions help bind the work together. Its four movements include a restrained slow movement and a lyrical third movement in place...

Brahms's final symphony develops concentrated musical ideas on a large scale. Falling intervals help generate the opening movement, while the finale builds a succession of variations over a recurring harmonic and...

Brahms wrote his Violin Concerto in close contact with Joseph Joachim, who advised on the solo part and supplied a frequently used cadenza. Its broad first movement places the violin within a symphonic argument...