One Of The Major Piano Concertos

Brahms is the featured composer for this month's BBC Music magazine free cover cd. The main work is the Piano Concerto No 1 performed by Nelson Goerner with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph Konig. The makeweight is a performance by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Richard Hickox of the Academic Festival Overture. The overture is a genre that I find dificult to take seriously as great art, while recognising the fun and brio of many operatic ones. Despite the analysis of the sleeve notes, I can't see the Academic as more than a potboiler. Maybe I am out of sympathy with the source material of student drinking songs ! The piano concerto on the other hand is a fine work, full of subtexts surrounding the relationship with the Schumanns and reminiscent of the first symphony in the agonies that the composition caused Brahms and the length of time he took to complete it. A huge first movement, a moving slow movement and an energetic and ultimately triumphant finale are all given a fine reading by Goerner. at 40, he is adding maturity and experience to youthful promise and technical expertise.