Brahms piano concerto 2 op 83- Thielemann- Staatskapelle Dresde- Pollini

Recorded live at the Semperoper, Dresden, in January 2013, this performance of Brahms s Piano Concerto No.2 reunited the dream-team of Maurizio Pollini and the Staatskapelle orchestra under Christian Thielemann. Pollini and Thielemann had already won a prestigious ECHO award for their DG recording of the first concerto, released in 2012. The combination of Pollini and Thielemann derives its attraction not least from the contrast between two great artists with very different attitudes to music-making [from the booklet essay by Tobias Niederschlag] Brahms s second piano concerto has had a particularly notable history in the city of Dresden, where the composer himself played the work twice on the stage of the Semperoper - where this recording was made. Premiered nearly twenty years after its predecessor and quite different in character, the concerto is still one of the greatest challenges of the piano repertory not just because of its daunting technical demands but also because of the sheer scale of its four movements. The resolve and self-assurance with which Pollini played here was fascinating. The sound was able to gain in breadth and depth. Christian Thielemann accompanied with great attention and with tightly coiled flexibility. Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten