Concerto, No. 2 Bb major [antikvár]

BRAHMS: PIANO CONCERTO, No. 2, BFLAT MAJOR, OP. 83 We leam from Max Kalbeck, the reliable, thoroughly well-informed biographer of Brahms, that the master sketched out his second Piano Concerto in B flat major immediately after his first Italian journey, in the Spring of 1878, but that he put it aside in favour of the Violin Concerto and the first Violin Sonata when he spent the summer in Pfirtschach, Slyria, and did not continue it until he had visited Italy for a second time at the beginning of 1881 and had taken up his summer quarters at the end of May in Pressbaum near Vienna. He must have completed the score of this longest and most powerful of all Piano Concertos in a comparatively short time, for, as early as July 7th he announced to his devoted admirer and friend, Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, as follows:— "I must inform you that I have written quite a little Piano Concerto containing quite a nice little Scherzo. It is in the key of Bflat major". About the same time he must have written to the same effect to Clara Schumann, but unfortunately the letter is lost. On July 15th Madame Schumann replied, saying:— "How glad I am to hear about the Concerto I Perhaps I could play it." But the first person who saw the work published as op. 83 was the surgeon, Ttieodor Billroth, of Vienna, a highly musical man and one of the composer's most intimate friends. On July 11th Bill-No. 715 roth received the score with the request not to show it to anybody else and to return it as soon as possible. As Brahms had added:— "In case it interests you and you can make anything of the badly written copy, perhaps you will drop me a line about it." Billroth replied in a six-page letter as soon as he had examined the Concerto and took back the M. S. himself to Pressbaum on July 13th. He maintained rightly that the second Concerto, compared with the first, stood in the relationship of man to youth; he also justified the existence of the Scherzo— unusual in a Piano work of this description — and which, according to Kalbeck, was intended originally for the Violin Concerto. Brahms somewhat annoyed his friend and principal editor, Fritz Simrock, by asserting that he wished to entrust the new work to Dr. Abraham, the owner of the Peters Edition, and to whom the composer felt in some way bound. He wrote to Simrock on August 8th saying:— "It would be another matter if you were really intent on having the Piano Concerto and really preferred that I should give some smaller works to Dr. Abraham which would appear sooner! You should be honest, and not mind if I pass you over with a Piano Concerto." Nevertheless, the work was published by Simrock. As further trouble with Dr. Abraham ensued, Brahms confirmed his