Brahms - Piano Concerto 2 [Pollini/ Abbado-Wiener Philharmoniker]Wow!, i was surprised how good this was today, i was introduced to Brahms by his First Piano Concerto, and immediately i fell in love with that work, that when i got round to listening to the Second, i thought 'how can Brahms better that work?', but i had to admit it was at least the equal of the First, now... well, i'm starting to feel this has a degree of superiority, it's a gorgeous work, and the four movement structure works a treat, it's even longer than the First Concerto, and this is a great white hot interpretation as well, caught on the wing in a live performance.
Maurizio Pollini is Italian, recently he hit his 70th birthday, he recorded this work in 1977, these 2CD releases by DG are usually good visually, this one shows a pencil drawing, not the greatest of the series, however the artistic layout of the booklet is pleasing, each DG issue has a different colour to it, this one's a light brown.
Usually i just can't resist the slow third movement, and i suppose that's true of today, it's mesmerizing, those gentle tinkling note, like some kind of religious bells summoning the faithful to worship, however on this listen i marvelled at the ingenuity of the opening movement, i forget how long it really is [over 17 minutes here], somehow in my mind i get the feeling that all the movements are of equal length,
Here's Pollini playing the first movement on YouTube, with Abbado conducting.
