Chapter 21 - Pianists

Summary

Although Brahms was a fine pianist and the composer of major repertory for the instrument, he is not normally regarded as having established a ‘school’ of performance as such; certainly not like his pianist-composer contemporaries Liszt and Anton Rubinstein whose numerous students promoted their teaching through technical features of performance. Although Brahms wrote an extensive set of exercises – the 51 Exercises WoO 6 (published in 1893, but apparently dating from the 1850s and 1860s) – which clearly address the technical requirements of his own works, he often showed little interest in public performance and did not especially promote his piano works apart from the concertos (at least on the inconsistent evidence of documented first performances). By comparison, he premiered virtually all his piano chamber music: only one work, the First Piano Quartet Op. 25 was definitely not given by him [see Ch. 9 ‘As Pianist’].