Brahms: Complete Symphonies For Piano 4-Hands Vol. 2 – Corrado Greco

Brahms wrote his Second Symphony in 1877, during the summer months he was spending in Carinthia. While the gestation of the First Symphony took him approximately fifteen years, this Second came out of his pen almost effortlessly. It is completely different in mood and style with respect to its elder sister: it is generally serene, at times ironic, only occasionally pervaded by dark premonitions. Thus, it was in an ironic fashion that Brahms described it to his publisher as “the most melancholic piece” of his output. Brahms himself premiered its outer movements for a selected audience of friends, playing it in the four-hand piano version recorded in this Da Vinci Classics production. The setting was perhaps the ideal one for savouring such a masterpiece: a restricted audience of connoisseurs, the composer at the piano, together with another excellent musician, and the new Symphony progressively unveiled to their sympathetic ears. This CD production, thus, allows us to relive, somehow, the enchanted experience of those fortunate first listeners. Along with the Second Symphony, this album features the original four-hand version of the Tragic Overture, whose composition took place between those of the Second and Third Symphonies.