Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Piano Concerto No. 2
Three Intermezzi, Op. 117
Francesco Piemontesi (piano)
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig/Manfred Honeck
rec. live, April 2025, Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, Germany
Pentatone PTC5187461 [61]
Francesco Piemontesi’s piano-playing career is too well-established by now to call him a young man on the up, and it’d be going too far to say that he had something to prove. Still, recording what’s probably the chunkiest concerto in the mainstream repertoire sends a pretty strong signal about a musician who has triumphantly arrived, a signal that’s amplified when you consider that his partner orchestra is one of the oldest and best-established symphony orchestras in the world.
If expectations are high based on this, however, then they are triumphantly fulfilled, because this is a very strong vision of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto. The main thing you notice about Piemontesi’s pianism is that he never sounds as though he needs to assert himself, still less to show off. Instead, it’s the poetry and beauty that come to the fore most consistently. Sure, the rock-solid technique is there, but it’s never there for its own sake, but always to serve the line and tone of the music.
You get that right from the opening. There is uncommon mellifluousness to Piemontesi’s first movement, not only in question-and-answer of the opening phrases, which couldn’t sound more natural, but in the piano’s succeeding solo flourish, too, which is vigorous and forthright but from a position of quiet confidence. Piemontesi’s approach is to smooth over what sounds craggy and pointed under the fingers of other. His playing is muscular when it’s needed, of course, but overall, there’s a beguiling gentleness to his approach and there are entrancing moments of tripping lightness, such as in that delightfully dancing piano melody towards the end of the development that occurs only once but here, more than ever, Piemontesi makes you wish would hang around for longer. The subsequent moment that launches the recapitulation, where the development dissolves into the return of the opening horn phrase, a key tell in any Brahms 2, is spine-tingling.
Alongside him, the Gewandhausorchester is often in full heroic mode in the first movement, driven thus by Honeck in a forward-thrusting interpretation that’s often very exciting. However, there is lightness too in orchestral playing that is airborne, not earthbound, and it’s an excellent foil to Piemontesi’s piano playing. Consequently, there is majesty here, but it feels humane and sympathetic, and that means that the big moments, like the start of the development, sound properly muscular, like peaks on a mountain range rather than a continuous ridge.
There is a lively, winningly dance-like touch to the Scherzo, but Honeck pulls things up thrillingly as things lead into central Trio. Piemontesi and he are clearly very much on the same page, as his ensuing, spidery piano line fits into this beautifully. The slow third movement contains beautiful cello solos, of course, but it always flows, moving constantly forwards, never wallowing, which is very refreshing. Things slow up a little for the piano’s dreamy first entry, but momentum is broadly upheld and then it builds architecturally in terms of both tempo and volume to the grand reminiscence of the cello’s opening theme. That’s the very impressive fruit of a collaboration between soloist and conductor, which then slips into quiet rhapsody as we await the return of the cello solo. The finale which follows is sunny, but again the piano keeps dance-like elements bubbling underneath thanks to Piemontesi’s light-heartedness and sheer pianistic agility.
There are welcome bonuses, too, in thoughtful, inward performances of the Opus 117 Intermezzi, which seem to pose many questions without ever doing anything so bold as answering them. But that’s just right for Brahms’ late piano music, and Piemontesi’s touch is beautifully subtle, gently caressing Brahms’ lines of music without ever doing anything so presumptuous as imposing himself on them.
Of course, the competition for this music, particularly the concerto, on disc is formidable, and nobody will want to set aside the like of Gilels, Kovacevich or Freire, but you might want to find room alongside them for this very persuasive newcomer, and it helps that Pentatone’s recording in the Gewandhaus is clean, clear and warm, and even though it’s live there is never a hint of audience noise.
Simon Thompson
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