IDAGIO | Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 - Sergei Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 2 3149028140392

Featuring

Kurt Sanderling
Yakov Zak
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
USSR State Radio and TV Symphony Orchestra
Johannes Brahms
Sergei Prokofiev

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Critical Reception

The Viennese critic Hanslick called Brahms's Piano Concerto in B flat major 'large-scale chamber music,' an assertion corroborated by Brahms himself.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Yakov Zak, the pianist, was renowned for his visual and colorist approach to music, often comparing elements of musical form and interpretation to the art of painters.

Performer Biography

Kurt Sanderling, the conductor, left the Jüdischen Kulturbund in Berlin in 1936 for the USSR, where he became assistant to Georges Sebastian at the Radio.

Critical Reception

Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 was met with a scathing review at its 1913 premiere, with one critic stating, 'This futuristic music, the devil take it!'.

Composition History

Brahms's Piano Concerto in B flat major, Op. 83, was first sketched in Italy in 1878, but its actual writing only took about six weeks during a stay in Pressbaum.

Performer Biography

Yakov Zak, the pianist on this recording, was ranked among the finest pianists of his generation by his master, Neuhaus.

Performer Biography

Kurt Sanderling, the conductor, took Soviet citizenship in 1940 and later returned to East Germany in 1960 to resuscitate the Berlin Symphony and the Staatskapelle of Dresden.