On 23 July, Swiss-Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi announces a new recording of Brahms’ monumental Piano Concerto No. 1 to be released on 11 September.
Recorded live in December 2025, and paired with Brahms’ Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118, the album will be released on Pentatone and available on CD and all streaming services.
Swiss-Italian pianist Francesco Piemontesi, a native of Locarno, is regarded as one of the leading interpreters of the German classical and romantic repertoire. This new recording follows his 2025 album of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 and Intermezzi Op. 117, which was recorded with the same musicians and earned worldwide critical acclaim.
Brahms wrote the first motif for his Piano Concerto No. 1 after Robert Schumann’s suicide attempt in 1854, and he continued working on the concerto until its premiere in 1859. Although the concerto met with failure at its second performance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus – the same venue this album was recorded in – Brahms held it in regard and performed the concerto himself as a soloist on 35 occasions, in addition to performances with pianists such as Clara Schumann.
Francesco Piemontesi described the music of the Piano Concerto No. 1: “It does not sound like something artfully constructed, but rather like matter coming into being. The piano does not appear as a virtuosic hero, but rather as a thinking, feeling, ordering consciousness within this vast sonic world — perhaps as a symbol of the tension between human being and nature, individual and fate, spirit and chaos…. The longer I play Brahms, the more I feel that his music does not seek to impress, but to be true.”
Conductor Manfred Honeck added: “Brahms’ First Piano Concerto holds a unique place in the repertoire and is often experienced as the central, defining work of a concert evening… it can be heard as a journey through a wide emotional landscape. It is, in many ways, a symphony for piano and orchestra – one that moves between intensity and play, revealing its richness through both power and subtlety.”
Complementing the concerto are Brahms’ Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118, composed more than three decades after the concerto and lauded for their intimacy and emotional restraint. From the consoling warmth of the Intermezzo in A Major to the desolate introspection of the Intermezzo in E-flat minor, these pieces form a poignant counterpoint to the youthful turbulence of the concerto.
Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 & Six Piano Pieces Op. 118 is released on Pentatone on 11 September, and will be available on CD and all streaming services.
Jem Girl at the Piano 