Complete Works for Solo Piano Vol. 4 | Classical Music Sheet Book | Perfect for Piano Practice, Recitals & Music Education

I was very enthusiastic about an earlier Brahms piano music CD played by a then-unknown-to-me German pianist Andreas Boyde Johannes Brahms: Complete Works For Solo Piano, Vol. 3 which contained the Handel and Paganini Variations superbly done. The present CD, number four in a series that promises to include all of Brahms's piano music, focuses on miniatures of Brahms's later life. Indeed, all his piano works in his later years were in smaller forms.This disc contains the Op. 76 pieces (each either called a Capriccio or an Intermezzo), the two rhapsodies of Op. 79, and the Op. 116 Fantasies (also all called either Capriccio or Intermezzo). For a long time my favorite recordings of some of these late miniatures have been those of Anton Kuerti Kuerti Plays Brahms, Kovacevich Late Piano Music, Katchen Brahms: Works for Solo Piano and Perahia Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 3, Rhapsodies, Intermezzo, Capriccio. There are others, of course, who probably belong in this company. Stiff competition. So how does Andreas Boyde do? Well, he is clearly a very sensitive musician who also has wonderful technical skills. If I had to describe his approach to these pieces I would say that he is more inward than extrovert which is, for me, the appropriate approach. Too many pianists, because of the handfuls of chords and arpeggiated chords built on thirds and sixths, bang the music out, thickening its textures. Brahms's piano writing does indeed invite this approach, but it can make his music ungainly and even ugly at times. The best approach is a lighter, more delicate one and Boyde utilizes this in his playing. This doesn't mean that he can't or doesn't use a more outgoing approach in those works that demand it, as in the two Ballades, Op. 79 or the first of the Op. 116 set.The Op. 116 Fantasies are among the more neglected late works of Brahms -- overshadowed, at least on record, by Opp. 117-119. I find them to be among his most lovable works but I do understand how they are less favored than their later neighbors. I suspect this is because the first of them is rather blunt and less inviting than some of the later ones. And when they are played as a group, as they almost always are, this first one has to be gotten over. Boyde does this at least partly by playing it as a great story whose drama grabs you and doesn't let go.Boyde, then, joins those others who have given us vital, engaging and lovely performances of these late works. He emphasizes the uses Brahms makes of thematic variation (even though none of them is actually a set of variations per se) and by making them intimate encounters.I have given this disc four out of five stars largely because of the number of really top-rank recorded versions, but still it is recommended, especially for those who collect these works by a number of pianists.Scott Morrison