Piano Recital: Amir Tebenikhin

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Johannes Brahms(1833-1897): Klavierst??cke, Op. 76Claude Debussy(1862-1918): Three Preludes from Book IISergey Prokofiev(1891-1953): Sonata No.8 in B flat major, Op. 84In Vienna, where he finally settled in 1869, Johannes Brahms came to berecognized by some as the true heir to Beethoven, who had died there some fortyyears or so before. Born in Hamburg, the son of a double-bass player and hisseamstress wife, seventeen years her husband's senior, he was taught the violinand cello by his father, with the object of following the same trade. The boy,however, showed greater aptitude for the piano and under generous and inspiredteaching reached a high standard of performance and a concurrent command of thetechniques of composition. He made his first important concert tour in 1853with the emigre Hungarian violinist Ede Remenyi, visiting Liszt in Weimar,where Brahms failed to make a good impression, and then, with another youngviolinist from Hungary, Joseph Joachim, the Schumanns in D??sseldorf. RobertSchumann admired his performance of his own compositions enough to publish anarticle welcoming him as the successor to Beethoven, this shortly before hisown final break-down. With the illness and death of Schumann, Brahms did hisbest to support Clara Schumann, one of the leading pianists of the time, andthey continued a close relationship until her death in 1896.Brahms had given his first concert in Vienna in 1862 and he continued tovisit the city in the following years, employed in 1863 as conductor of theVienna Singakademie, continuing an occupation with which he had been involvedin Hamburg and, for three seasons, at the court in Detmold. Eventually heestablished a routine of work for himself in Vienna, often spending summermonths in the country, where he found leisure for composition. Although he wasa pianist himself, he only gave intermittent attention to writing solely forthe piano. In his earlier years he had won some reputation for his sets ofvariations, but he wrote no solo piano music for some fifteen years after the PaganiniVariations completed in 1863. It was in 1878 that he completed two volumesof piano pieces, published in 1879 as Klavierst??cke, Opus 76, and firstperformed in Leipzig on 4th January 1880. The set consists of four Capricciosand four Intermezzos. The opening Capriccio in F sharp minoroffers brief moments of respite in its turbulent and demanding course. It isfollowed by the Capriccio in B minor, which has the additional directiongrazioso after the agitato of the preceding piece, now suggestingsomething of a dance, slowing into a gentler mood, before the dance resumes.The first Intermezzo, in an expressive A flat major, presents adelicate principal melody in syncopation, before Brahms introduces hisfavourite cross-rhythms, tellingly and briefly. This is followed by the Intermezzoin B flat major, like the preceding piece marked grazioso. Here thefirst section is repeated, followed by a melody of limpid beauty above a gentleaccompani