Brahms & Marx

«Just back from the rehearsal. No. IV giant, quite unique, quite new, brazen individuality. Breathes unparalleled energy from A to Z»: The words of Hans von Bülow, the conductor of the world premiere of Johannes Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, which took place in Meiningen, Germany, in 1885. And as the young Richard Strauss, at this point Second Kapellmeister there, acknowledged: «His new symphony certainly is a giant work, of a greatness of conception and invention, genius in treatment of forms, construction of periods, of eminent impetus and force, new and original.» Fabien Gabel contrasts the grandiosely severe E minor that’s still resonating at the end of this last Brahms symphony with the E major that over and over again blossoms earnestly in the «Romantic Piano Concerto» of 1919 by Joseph Marx – and yes the work’s title is a clue to its nature. To revive this work’s keyboard-hammering splendour and delicate blandishments, its refined, Straussian cantilenas and climaxes, Gabel has secured the services of Marc-André Hamelin: a highly accomplished pianist of great curiosity, and never one to shy away from a challenge.