Audition: Brahms Piano Concerto No 1: Wilhelm Backhaus/BBCSO/Boult #Op10

#Op10 is the search term for these recordings 

Recorded 28th & 29th Nov 1932, Abbey Road studio, London

This was an unexpected surprise and probably the most fearsome rendition of this Concerto that I’ve heard so far.

Both Boult and Backhaus were well established musicians, both in their 40s, when HMV caught this extraordinary reading. 

Adrian Boult was the principal conductor of the orchestra. It was formed in 1930 and Boult quickly acquired a great reputation. This at a time when London already had three great orchestras. Boult marshalled the players into an extraordinarily tight and well balanced group which feed BBC Radio with classics and contemporary classics at a prodigious rate.

Backhaus was not a product of a Austro German piano scholar per se and had no sooner finished with his teaching at the Leipzig Conservatory than his career sped on. He became noted for his Beethoven, Brahms but equally adept in Chopin and Bach. It is evident from this recording that he was capable of eruptive power and scrupulous accuracy and transparency.

To say that Backhaus attacks this work is perhaps too crude but there are times when one feels assailed by notes of weight and ringing tone. His playing in the slow movement is beautiful - more delicate than many play it today and with the sweetest of bell-like tone. Boult didn’t allow him to dwell in this Adagio except, as in the best of readings, to enjoy the deep pedal episodes.

in the outer movements Backhaus was much more muscular and emphatic: it worked very well particularly when Brahms’s somewhat heavy scoring needed silver against the iron.

The result was a reading of real fire at times and beautiful delicacy at others and all within a strict reading of the score. The the soloist was also particularly fluid and fluent. I particularly liked the way that Backhaus didn’t stint on any of the dynamic markings and articulated every trill and nuance, this passage work was unbelievable and one can see why he excelled in this piece.

I’m not sure how well this reading would’ve gone down in a big concert hall, I suspect it would’ve been very loud at times. So that reading had a location and recording engineers and the location which made the most of the work. Virtually everything was in the artists favour.

It’s worth two offering congratulations to Mark Obert-Thorn who provided the transfer onto CD for Naxos. It is truly one of the most effective transfers given its age - exceptional.

People of my generation don’t much think of Boult in his early years. He was a “meat and potatoes” conductor as comfortable in Elgar as he was Brahms and Beethoven and Schönberg and Berg conductor. He did go on to record the Brahms symphonies with distinction. Here he tackling a formidable pianist not the loungers of Brahms symphonies. He is very sympathetic to Brahms’ balancing act in this concerto between the keyboard fireworks and the lush. rich sound of Brahms lyricism. You can hear this in the extraordinary confidence and clear delineation of lines in the orchestra. So to sum up in this recording one hears pretty much everything and the balance was probably better than you would get today and the performance and interpretation is outstanding with Backhaus hammering home the strong backbone of this work.

Backhaus who grew up in a period of great Brahms interpreters was the earliest in our survey on record and immediately I’m able to say it’s one of the most impressive solo contributions. There’s more to come from him later in this survey too…