Concertos Piano numéros 1 & 2

Description

This double album bears witness to the triumphant reunion of Maurizio Pollini and the Staatskapelle Dresden in 2011 and 2013, presenting Brahms’s two Piano Concertos, his first recordings with Christian Thielemann.
Brahms composed the first during the 1850s. The work received an unfavorable reception. The unorthodox writing for the time, sometimes leaving the concertante part to the orchestra, earned him the public’s boos, so much so that Brahms waited twenty years before presenting his second concerto, which in turn received an extremely enthusiastic reception.
Maurizio Pollini, one of the greatest interpreters of Brahms, had previously recorded them for Deutsche Grammophon with Claudio Abbado and the Berliner Philharmoniker in the mid-1970s, in benchmark versions.
Having nothing to envy from their elders, these recordings even approach excellence thanks to the energy and clarity of Pollini’s playing coupled with Thielemann’s astonishing precision.
He does not merely accompany his soloist, but interprets the works by giving the orchestra a leading role.
His generous conducting and emphatic expression provide Pollini with a solid foundation on which to build his playing, which thus gains in depth and breadth.