Johannes Brahms: Klavierstücke (ECM New Series 2730/31)

Johannes BrahmsAndrás SchiffKlavierstücke András Schiff Blüthner pianoRecorded March 2021Kammermusiksaal Hermann J. Absdes Beethoven-Haus, BonnEngineer: Stephan SchellmannProduction coordination: Guido GornaCover photo: Péter NádasProduced by Manfred EicherRelease date: September 18, 2026 The distance between Johannes Brahms’s early and late piano music supplies the organizing principle for András Schiff’s latest addition to his ECM New Series traversal of the 19th-century German composer. Schiff begins with the long-lost Albumblatt, written when Brahms was 20 for the friendship album of Göttingen music director Arnold Wehner and later adapted for the Horn Trio, Op. 40. Youthful possibility enters a silent argument with late style, and four intervening decades press upon every note. Schiff plays a beautifully preserved 1859 Blüthner whose warmth never becomes cosmetic and whose bass register retains an almost archaeological presence. His booklet notes unite personal reflection with…