Trifonov Plays Brahms
Thursday, August 4, 2022, 6:30 PM MDT
Sun Valley Pavilion
Festival Orchestra
Alasdair Neale, Conductor
Daniil Trifonov, Piano
Pre-Concert Chat, 5:45 PM
Led by Sameer Patel
Pavilion Lawn Paver Bar
Brahms
Concerto No. 1 in D Minor for Piano, Op. 15
Programming update: Mr. Trifonov will perform Brahms’s first piano concerto—notable for its grandeur and thrilling technical difficulty—instead of the composer’s Concerto No. 2 for tonight’s concert.
Guest artist
Program note: Trifonov Plays Brahms
Infinitely grateful to Robert Schumann for publicly endorsing his work, Brahms felt enormous pressure to live up to the master’s words. In the early months of 1854, Brahms had sketched out a sonata for two pianos in D minor, and in May, he played it through with Clara Schumann, with whom he was forging a close friendship that would last until her death in 1896. Although successful, the work left Brahms unsatisfied, agreeing with his friend Julius Grimm who declared that the work deserved “a more dignified form.” Brahms’s decision to recast the work as a first symphony was certainly in part influenced by Schumann’s high expectations—if he were to become the next great German composer, he would have to establish himself as a master of the symphonic form. He struggled mightily with the rewrite, however, spinning his wheels for months. ...
2022 digital program book
Printed programs are available at the concerts, at the Festival Welcome Center and Store (open during rehearsal and 5:00-8:00 PM; closed during the concert), or outside the Festival office at 120 2nd, Ave. North, Ketchum.