Johannes Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15 The Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, is a work for piano and orchestra completed by Johannes Brahms in 1858. The composer gave the work's public debut in Hanover, the following year. It was his first-performed orchestral work, and (in its third performance) his first orchestral work performed to audience approval. This concerto is written in the traditional three movements and is approximately 40 to 50 minutes long. I. Maestoso (D minor) : The first movement is in sonata form, divided into five sections: orchestral introduction, exposition, development, recapitulation, and coda. This movement is large, lasting between 20 and 25 minutes. Although without a cadenza, the strict adherence to forms used in the Classical Period earned Brahms a reputation for being musically "conservative". The theme heavily makes use of arpeggiated chords and trills. Within the orchestral introduction other themes are introduced, and the thematic material is further developed by both orchestra and soloist. II. Adagio (D major) : This movement is in a ternary form, with the theme being introduced by bassoons. III. Rondo: Allegro non troppo (D minor → D major) : The structure of the Rondo finale is similar to that of the rondo of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3. There are three themes present in this rondo; the second theme may be considered a strong variation of the first. The third theme is introduced in the episode but is never explicitly developed by the soloist, instead the soloist is "integrated into the orchestral effect". A cadenza follows the bulk of the rondo, with an extensive coda that develops the first and third themes appearing afterward. The coda is in the parallel major, D major.
Piano: Hélène Grimaud (born 7 November 1969) is a French classical pianist and the founder of the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York. She was born in Aix-en-Provence, France. She described family nationalities in a New York Times interview with John Rockwell: "My father came from a background of Sephardic Jews in Africa, and my mother's ancestors were Jewish Berbers from Corsica." Her father was adopted as a child by a French family and he became a university tutor teaching languages. According to Luc Antonini the name Grimaud is typical of the region of Trets in Provence. She has stated that, as a child, she was often "agitated". She discovered the piano at seven. In 1982, she entered the Conservatoire de Paris, where she studied with Jacques Rouvier. In 1985, she won 1st Prize at the Conservatory and the Grand Prix du Disque of the Académie Charles Cros for her recording of the Rachmaninoff Piano Sonata No. 2.
