BRAHMS

Piano Concerto 1 & 2

 

Nelson Freire

Gewandhaus Orchestra / Riccardo Chailly

 

 

Outstanding performances of rare depth and humanity.

 

Recorded in the legendary acoustic of the Gewandhaus, Leipzig.

 

Outstanding soloist and conductor and an orchestra with a deep tradition in this music.

 

Nelson Freire, Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhaus orchestra come together for these very special recordings of both Brahms piano concertos.

  

Brahms's infinitely great piano concertos are tailor-made for a pianist of Nelson Freire's gifts. These include a rare capacity to resolve extreme difficulties with an ease bordering on nonchalance but, more importantly, with an elegance and poetry inseparable from Brahms's Romantic genius.

 

`If there is a more suave, pianistic and subtly gifted artist before us today, I cannot imagine who it might be.' (Opus Magazine)

 

`The world's best kept piano secret follows his three much-lauded discs of Chopin and Schumann with both of Brahms's mighty Piano Concertos. These are Nelson Freire's first concerto recordings since signing an exclusive contract with Decca in 2001. Conducted by fellow Decca artist Riccardo Chailly, the new Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, in their legendary hall.

 

Nelson Freire was born in 1944 in Bos Esperança, Brazil and as a child prodigy received many prizes and awards. He won the Rio de Janeiro and Vianna da Motta International Piano Competitions, and in 1964 was awarded the Dinu Lipatti medal. As his career became increasingly hectic and intense he decided to give fewer concerts in order to hone his extraordinary powers without undue pressure and stress, hoping to achieve greater naturalness. An increasingly elusive figure, his qualities have been admirably summarised by Ivan Davis, the brilliant American virtuoso. For him Freire is 'natural (both in pianism and musical honesty), provocative (why didn't I think of that?) and inevitable (a totality of technique and temperament)'.

 

Decca 2cds 4757637