All the musicians here have performed the
Brahms
piano concertos many times, including at least once before together in the
Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15
, so there is not going to be anything really new about this live performance, part of a cycle that also covered the
symphonies in January 2024. But there is a considerable draw in the presence of the 88-year-old conductor
Zubin Mehta
, who, let's face it, is to be commended for even making it to the podium at that age. And he does more than that, confident at the head of an orchestra he first conducted in 1987. Of course, it's hard to determine in a concerto performance whether the soloist or the conductor is setting the concept for the work. It is at the very least
Mehta
who sets the opening tempo, though, and that tempo in this performance of the
Piano Concerto No. 1
is quite unusual. The length of the performance as a whole is close to average for the work, but the opening movement comes in several minutes slower than usual;
forgoes some of the maestoso quality marked in the score in favor of a more spacious environment. This allows lots of orchestral detail in the opening tutti and elsewhere, and also gives space for extra zing in the foot-tapping finale.
Yefim Bronfman
, although a specialist in virtuoso and Russian repertory, knows this work well and shines in both slow movements and throughout the very symphonic
Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 83
. The in-house engineers of the
Münchner Philharmoniker
are mastering their Gasteig space and by now are offering products that can compete with the abundant live albums of British orchestras; there is a rather glassy quality to the sound here, yet there is not a shred of messy noise. These recordings do not represent the only ways of playing the
concertos, but they are valuable documents of a great conductor's late career. ~ James Manheim