THE FIRST PIANO CONCERTO OF JOHANNES BRAHMS: ITS HISTORY AND PERFORMANCE PRACTICE

Abstract

In recent years, Brahms’s music has begun to occupy a larger role in the consciousness of musicologists, and with this surge of interest came a refreshingly original approach to his music. Although the First Piano Concerto op. 15 of Johannes Brahms is a beloved part of the standard piano repertoire, there is a curious under-representation of the work through the lens of historical performance practice. This monograph addresses the various aspects that comprise a thorough performance practice analysis of the concerto. These include pedaling, articulation, phrasing, and questions of tempo, an element that takes on greater importance beyond just complicating matters technically. These elements are then put into the context of Brahms’s own pianism, conducting, teaching, and musicological endeavors based on first and second-hand accounts of the composer’s work. It is the combining of these concepts that serves to illuminate the concerto in a far more detailed fashion, and ultimately enabling us to re-evaluate whether the time honored modern interpretations of the work fall within the boundaries that Brahms himself would have considered effective and accurate.