# In honor of Brahms' birthday, here are some of the best recordings of his difficult piano music



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

While the video does indeed rank these Brahms works by difficulty, that's just one objective of my videos. More important is which pianists create the most music out of his difficulties, and I provide background info on pianists and the pieces in the captions of the video. 

The description also contains a overview of what exactly makes Brahms tough to master and what to prepare if you're looking to learn one of these works.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Good to see Brahms indulging in some Lisztian hedonism
jjk


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## pjang23 (Oct 8, 2009)

Excluding the piano quintet and the rest of his piano chamber music is questionable. The fourth movement is a monster.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The recently deceased Nicholas Angelich was an interesting Brahmsian. He first attracted my attention when he played The Paganini Variations in an almost Arrauvian way in a concert. I replayed it when he died, first time in years.

In January someone gave me an unreleased recording of Michelangeli playing the Paganini Variations in Lisbon in 1972. Very good.

My other recent positive Brahms experience was revisiting Cziffra's live performance at Senlis, playing the Hungarian Dances. It's amazing how he can make you think that this is the best music in the world, which it clearly isn't -- but that's the magic of a great pianist.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

pjang23 said:


> Excluding the piano quintet and the rest of his piano chamber music is questionable. The fourth movement is a monster.


Before you give up completely on the quartets, try the recent recording by the Dudok Quartet of Amsterdam. More than one person I know who thought like you saw the error of their ways because of those performances. Historically informed they say, though they don't spell out the details. Here's the booklet.

000145392.pdf (qobuz.com)


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

I figured that something from the Paganini variations would be in the #1 spot.  I'm not a virtuoso pianist so a lot of it presents problems but _the_ problem I've always had in playing Brahms is in getting the rhythm down. He sure did love cross-rhythms.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I love Brahms's orchestral and chamber music, but his piano music has always held me at arms-length with the exception of the autumnal, beautifully melancholic late works. The music before that seemed much more virtuosic and quasi-Lisztian which, IMO, was not a mode that suited Brahms. Still, I do think there are some gems among them: I particularly like his Variations on Handel, Paganini and Schumann (his own Variations on an Original Theme isn't bad either). The interesting thing about the Schumann is that it may be Brahms's most Schumann-esque piece too, which is cool given my love for both composers.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

This seems like a pretty reasonable list, well done Chu. Maybe a few swaps or changes I would make here and there... but I'm hardly qualified to judge the difficulty of these works anyway, so I won't name them.

One of the great things about some of Brahms' piano music is that he managed to achieve the energy and emotional density of a Chopin ballade or a Scriabin sonata but with half the notes, thereby making it a lot easier on the hands for proficient but not world-class pianists. The Op. 79 Rhapsodies are some of the most satisfying piano works in the entire literature for me, offering tons of room for energetic expression without being frustratingly challenging technically. The Op. 10 Ballades are similar in that regard.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

pjang23 said:


> Excluding the piano quintet and the rest of his piano chamber music is questionable. The fourth movement is a monster.


I can see the quintet and the op. 25 quartet replacing the op. 76 works or the 2nd Sonata. Oh, and also some of those leaps the finale of the horn trio seem pretty difficult as well ...


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

I should add that i think assessing the difficulty of a piece is very subjective - not just in the sense that two people might find certain techniques to possess differing relative levels of difficulty, but also because people's artistic interpretations - even on a surface level - can make a piece SIGNIFICANTLY more or less difficult. For instance, I tend to enjoy Brhams's Op. 118 no. 1 _very _fast and with very controlled phrasing - faster and more controlled than I've heard any professional pinaist play it. So a piece that may seem moderately difficult for most pianists at my level with my exact skillset is very difficult for me, simply because i choose to take it faster.


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## Bernamej (Feb 24, 2014)

I love that Brahms composed his music in his head during his daily long hiking/walks.
He also enjoyed, apparently, payed intimate relations with the “professional” ladies, which is always a good sign for an artist.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Besides the concertos and the Handel variations and maybe the 3rd sonata my favorite Brahms solo piano is all outside this list: op.116,117,118,119 and the Ballades op.10. I like the swagger of the early sonatas and also the other variations but they are not great favorites, and I am very cool towards the Paganini variations. 
It's also interesting that there is this "gap" in the middle of almost 30 years with only the op.76 and op.79 solo pieces between op.35 (ca. 1863) and the very late op.116 ff. (1892).


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

My brother shares a birthday with both Brahms and Tchaikovsky. When I pointed that out to him years ago, he couldn't have cared less.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

pjang23 said:


> Excluding the piano quintet and the rest of his piano chamber music is questionable. The fourth movement is a monster.


Sorry, only concertos and solo music were included. I'm pretty sure most of the chamber music is harder than the piano sonatas


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

chu42 said:


> Sorry, only concertos and solo music were included. I'm pretty sure most of the chamber music is harder than the piano sonatas


Well, I don't know about that, but they're certainly very difficult. I've played the piano parts for the 3rd violin sonata and the 3rd piano quartet, but I wouldn't dream of touching the 3rd piano sonata anytime soon...


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

FWIW I think it is a very plausible restriction to leave out chamber music in such a survey.


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