Johannes Brahms: Complete Concerti (Full Score)

Often called the last of the great classical composers, Brahms accommodated powerful romantic inclination to the demands of traditional musical form. The result is a delightful mixture of classical form clothed in the multicolored hues of German romanticism. (John Gillespie, Five Centuries of Keyboard Music). Brahms’s masterful synthesis of these disparate elements: his inventive rhythmic drive and happy fusion of poetry and sound workmanship are strikingly evidenced in the concerti. Although he wrote only four – two for piano, one for violin, and one double concerto for violin and cello – they have all become absolute staples of the concert repertoire. Because they are for different instruments, however, they have rarely been available together in one convenient volume – until now. This Dover edition reproduces all four concerti directly from Breitkopf and H rtel’s definitive S mtliche Werke, Volumes 5 and 5, c. 1920-27. The original editor’s commentary by Hans Gal is included both in German and in English. The four concerti are Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15; Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major, Op. 83; Violin Concerto, Op. 77; and Concerto for Violin and Cello, Op. 102. With this single low-priced volume, students, composers, and musicologists may savor Brahms’s development in the form (extending over three decades, 1845-87). Conductors and librarians will have a handy, inexpensive, complete collection, and musicians and music lovers will find a way to experience the inexhaustible variety of one of music’s great masters.