It took Brahms some time to complete his second piano concerto. The first sketches were made on May 6, 1878, at Pörtschach on the Wörthersee in southern Austria, but the work was not finished till the summer of 1881, when he gave it the finishing touches at Pressbaum, near Vienna.
On the day of completion he wrote to his friends the Herzogenbergs with his customary misleading humor: “I don’t mind telling you that l have written a tiny, tiny piano concerto with a tiny, tiny wisp of a scherzo.” A few days later he sent the four movements of the work to another friend, Dr. Theodor Billroth, telling him, “I am sending you some small piano pieces.”
In October Hans von Bülow, then director of the Meiningen Orchestra, conducted at Brahms’s request a rehearsal of the concerto with Brahms as pianist. The first public performance took place in Budapest at the Redoutensaal on November 9, 1881. Alexander Erkel was the conductor.
This “tiny, tiny piano concerto” or group of “some small piano pieces,” as you prefer, is really a concerto of exceptional dimensions. Not only has it the three usual movements of the classical concerto, each large in plan, but a highly developed scherzo (though it does not bear that name).
The first movement (Allegro non troppo, B-flat major, 4-4) begins with the initial statement of the first subject in dialogue for horn, piano, and woodwind.
A cadenza for the piano leads to a tutti, in which both the first and the second subjects are given full play. The development section is long and elaborate.
The fiery scherzo (Allegro appassionato, F major, 3-4) Max Kalbeck believed had been written for the violin concerto and then discarded. The piano gives out the first theme fortissimo. The strings sing the second theme tranquillo e dolce.
