Preface
Brahms is perhaps the last-born in the line of very great composers produced by the German-speaking world. Comparisons, as Dogberry says, are odorous, but most music lovers recognise that some or (I would say) all of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner and Brahms wrote music that is simply better and deeper than anyone else’s in the Baroque/classical/Romantic tradition. These are all composers whose works can be listened to with pleasure for an entire evening. Operas and oratorios aside, there are not many others. Mendelssohn, Chopin, Dvorak, Bruckner, Mahler for sure – there are other candidates – but these are all generally seen as at a slightly lower pitch of eminence. Brahms’s two piano concertos are among the supreme glories of his output. It is of course entirely pointless to debate their respective merits, but no less fun for that.