view of an audience. His piano concerto no. 3 in E major contains tonal themes and lacks
much of the earlier dark colouring and complex rhythmic features. His Sonata for two
Pianos and Percussion is one of his most popular pieces, as are his Romanian Folk
Dances for solo piano. His ‘Mikrokosmos’ is popular with piano teachers as a useful set
of teaching pieces. Bartók made a number of discs of his own piano works.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was a German composer and pianist. He was the first
major composer to make a piano recording, albeit a very primitive one. In 1889, Theo
Wangeman, a representative of the American inventor Thomas Edison, visited Brahms in
Vienna and invited him to make an experimental wax cylinder recording. Brahms agreed
to do this and on 2 December 1889 he recorded on cylinder his performance on piano of a
shortened version of his first Hungarian Dance. This recording was later issued on an LP
of early piano performances compiled by Gregor Benko. It was subsequently placed on
the internet at the following site: ‘Brahms at the Piano: musical archaeology by Jonathan
Berger CCRMA, Stanford University: An analysis and transcription of the 1889 cylinder
recording of Johannes Brahms’s piano performance of a segment from his First
Hungarian Dance.’ While the spoken introduction is clear, the piano playing is indistinct
owing to heavy surface noise. The recording of the piano playing has, however, been
analysed and shows Brahms used numerous performance nuances, some protracted
pauses, agogic inflections, improvised segments and added elaborations. Brahms’s
tempo is mm: ) = 80 which is considerably slower than any recent recording. In addition,
Brahms consistently underdots the dotted crotchet and quaver patterns. As Will
Crutchfield has pointed out, Brahms played ‘the left hand slightly before the right on just
about all the accented first beats where the texture is melody/accompaniment [but] never
on big accented chords.’ This is some evidence that Brahms used the mannerism of
melody-delaying in his piano playing. This remains the earliest piano recording made by
a major composer. The spoken introduction is probably by Wangeman.
Alexander Brailowsky (1896-1976) was a Russian pianist. After graduating from the
Kiev Conservatory, Brailowsky studied with Leschetizky in Vienna from 1911 to 1914,
with Busoni in Zurich, and Francis Planté in Paris. In 1919 Brailowsky made his concert
début in Paris and in 1926 he became a naturalised French citizen. He specialised in
Chopin and achieved most of his fame between the two world wars. He gave the first
complete Chopin cycle in history in Paris in 1924, using the composer’s own Pleyel
piano for some of his recitals. He made highly successful world tours and tours of
America. In 1960 he played the Chopin cycle again in New York, Paris and Brussels to
commemorate the 150th^ anniversary of Chopin’s birth. Although his playing by then was
past its best he still showed an overall mastery. He made many discs of Chopin, those of
the polonaises and waltzes being particularly well-regarded. There is a moderate amount
of melody-delaying, arpeggiata and agogic accentuation in his playing.
Alfred Brendel (1931- ) was one of the leading concert and recording artists throughout
the second half of the twentieth century. He specialises in the classical composers Haydn,
Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert and also Liszt. He has made multiple recordings of
many of the standard works of those composers and has always placed great emphasis on
intellectual integrity, textual accuracy, tonal beauty and freedom from mannerisms.