Brahms: Piano Works

Album review

Pianist Benjamin Engeli didn't start out on the piano, but with the horn – which is probably the explanation for his magnificent gift for "phrasing" and breathing, which for sure not all pianists have… We have already heard him at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, in the Vienna Konzerthaus, solo or with orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio, the Zurich Tonhalle or Moscow's Tchaikovsky Orchestra. But Engeli doesn't only play solo, as proved by his many collaborations with chamber music ensembles: the Trio Tecchler, the Zurich Ensemble, the Gershwin Piano Quartet, to name but a few. Engeli was a disciple of Berman, Pollini and Schiff. This recording is given over entirely to Brahms, which is a body of work with little of the virtuoso about it (at least in the purely mechanical sense of the term), in which the piano sound, the development of themes and a sense of harmony take centre stage. The selection of works covers more or less all the important moments in the composer's creative life: his youth with the Four Ballads of 1854, the maturity of the two Rhapsodies of 1879, and the later clarity of the Three Intermezzi of 1892. As a bonus, Engeli offers a kind of rarity, a re-writing of the Chaconne taken from the Partita in D Minor by Bach, first written for solo violin, and here written for the pianist's left hand alone, which is challenging in the extreme. © SM/Qobuz