Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 & Six Piano Pieces Op. 118 Francesco Piemontesi, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig & Manfred Honeck

• Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897): Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15:
• 1 Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15: I. Maestoso 22:16
• 2 Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15: II. Adagio 13:20
• 3 Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 15: III. Rondo. Allegro non troppo 12:14
• Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118:
• 4 Brahms: Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118: I. Intermezzo in A Minor 01:47
• 5 Brahms: Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118: II. Intermezzo in A Major 05:15
• 6 Brahms: Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118: III. Ballade in G Minor 03:13
• 7 Brahms: Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118: IV. Intermezzo in F Minor 02:43
• 8 Brahms: Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118: V. Romance in F Major 03:51
• 9 Brahms: Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118: VI. Intermezzo in E-Flat Minor 05:52
• Total Runtime 01:10:31

Info for Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 & Six Piano Pieces Op. 118

Brahms’ First Piano Concerto is a monumental work. More than 150 years after it was written, I often find myself asking what place this music still holds in our world today. Many composers invite us into another world. For the duration of a concert, we leave everyday life behind and enter a place shaped by imagination, beauty and wonder.

With Brahms, however, I have always felt something different. His music does not ask us to escape reality. Instead, it draws us more deeply into it. It speaks about the human condition with honesty, compassion and extraordinary strength. Rather than leading us away from the world, it helps us feel profoundly connected to it. The power of Brahms’ music never feels imposed from the outside. It seems to radiate from within.

My heartfelt thanks go to Manfred Honeck, the musicians of the Gewandhausorchester, Johannes and Ines Kammann, the entire team at PENTATONE and Cartier for their trust and support throughout this project.

Several tracks are already available as advance singles, and the album is now available to pre-add. I hope you will enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed bringing this music to life. It feels meaningful to release music that speaks so deeply about the human condition on a day that reminds us how fragile our world can be.

Francesco Piemontesi, piano
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Manfred Honeck, conductor

Francesco Piemontesi
Swiss-Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi, a native of Locarno, has over the years gained a reputation as one of the leading interpreters of the German classical and romantic repertoire. He appears as a regular guest with many of the world’s leading orchestras, in concert halls and music festivals around the globe.

With his subtle, but mesmerizing interpretations of Franz Schubert’s piano sonatas, as well as the solo works and piano concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and Liszt, he has been acclaimed internationally by critics and audiences alike. His playing is characterized by sensitivity, intimacy and poetry, but also by power and brilliance. Above all, it is important to him to illuminate the scores from within: „Making music is like a second language for me. It feels like an existential necessity. I don’t want to entertain the audience, I want to let them participate in the deep dimensions of music.“

In addition to the classical and romantic periods, Francesco Piemontesi’s wider repertoire includes works by Bach and Handel in original versions and transcriptions, piano concertos by Ravel, Debussy, Bartók, Rachmaninov and Schönberg, as well as works by Olivier Messiaen and Unsuk Chin. Among his many important musical influences, he highlights his distinguished teachers Arie Vardi and Alfred Brendel, but above all French concert pianist Cecile Ousset. It is to her that he owes his rounded tone and a somnambulistic technique that is rooted in the French piano tradition going back to Marcel Ciampi.

Francesco Piemontesi’s musical artistry is documented on numerous recordings that have received awards and critical acclaim, such as Schubert’s last Piano Sonatas, Debussy’s Preludes and Mozart’s Piano Concertos with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze. His latest release on Pentatone is dedicated to two of the most demanding pieces of piano literature: The Transcendental Etudes and the B minor Sonata by Franz Liszt.

Working with fellow musicians and orchestras alike, Francesco Piemontesi’s collaborations form themselves from the nucleus of friendship, appreciation and creativity. He recently has been Artist in Residence with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Dresden Philharmonic and the Gstaad Menuhin Festival. A long-standing relationship links him to the Schubertiade Festival and to London’s Wigmore Hall: having already completed concert cycles with the integral piano works of Schubert and Mozart, he will perform Beethoven’s piano sonatas there from 2025. As adept on the concert stage as he is in smaller chamber combinations, Francesco Piemontesi appears with a variety of partners including Renaud Capuçon, Tabea Zimmermann, Leonidas Kavakos, Janine Jansen, Daniel Müller-Schott, Stephen Kovacevich, Augustin Hadelich and Jörg Widmann.

As a soloist, he has played alongside leading orchestras such as Berlin, New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Munich, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Wiener Symphoniker, the Boston, Chicago, NHK and London Symphony Orchestras, the Cleveland Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe as well as the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. He regularly collaborates with distinguished conductors such as Gianandrea Noseda, Fabio Luisi, Antonio Pappano, Daniele Gatti, Daniele Rustioni, Lorenzo Viotti, Robin Ticciati, Iván Fischer, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Marek Janowski, Joana Mallwitz, Thomas Søndergård, Daniel Harding, Roger Norrington, Karina Canellakis, Paavo Järvi, Zubin Mehta, Nathalie Stutzmann, Elim Chan and Maxim Emelyanychev.

Francesco Piemontesi travels the world and has appeared in many prestigious venues including Berlin Philharmonie, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall New York and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. As a welcomed guest he was featured in the well-known festivals of Salzburg, Edinburgh, Aix-en-Provence, Luzern, Verbier and Schleswig-Holstein as well as in La Roque d’Anthéron, New York Mostly Mozart, Klavierfestival Ruhr and BBC Proms.

Highlights of the 2023/24 season include appearances with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich and New York Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester and Danish National Symphony Orchestra under Herbert Blomstedt, the Swedish and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestras under Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Hannu Lintu, Wiener Symphoniker under Joana Mallwitz and tours with the Dresden Philharmonic under Pablo Gonzales and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen under Jérémie Rhorer. Francesco Piemontesi will return to the Festival Aix-en-Provence and the Schubertiade and will play recitals at Wigmore Hall London, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Teatro di San Carlo Naples.

Booklet for Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 & Six Piano Pieces Op. 118