Maurizio Pollini is a sovereign interpreter of this concerto – which he has recorded for DG twice before – but this time around I found myself taking more pleasure, rather to my surprise, in the pioneering venture on period instruments. In spirit, there’s nothing antiquarian about it: the very well-prepared performance invites approval for the way it meets the challenge of great music on Brahms’s terms, not for its exactitude as a historically conscious exercise. The wind in chorus are in tune; the natural horn, often an inspiration to Brahms, speaks as its own man and not as a forerunner of the modern descendant; and the orchestra in sections as well as a mass communicates discipline and confidence, and no feeling at all of being out to prove something. As to the piano, it proves to be a fine choice, allaying any doubt as soon as the octave trills begin that it might not last the course without the legs coming off. Érards were acknowledged to be superior to others when it came to clarity and brilliance, and holding their own in interaction with an orchestra, and Brahms knew one in Hamburg at the time he was wrestling with ‘my failed symphony’ that he called ‘the only usable grand piano here’. This example has its limitations: as you might expect, it can’t sustain a singing line in the treble very well, let alone the intensity of feeling and vision of distant regions that the slow movement enshrines, unfolding at rather an amble here as if to attempt anything slower would be a problem. But the finale, from everybody, comes together astonishingly well, better I would say than from Pollini and Thielemann. I want to hear more of Hardy Rittner, an exceptional talent. The orchestra I would put on a par with Gardiner’s (in the Schumann symphonies, for example) or any ensemble active in this type of business. Dabringhaus und Grimm makes adventurous records. Here is one. If you’re open to notions of ‘historical’ orchestral sound and to pianos in evolution when they were less standardised than today’s, do try it.

Pollini’s Dresden recording derives likewise from concert performances. He is quite far back in the picture. Thielemann flings the first theme of the Maestoso across the canvas as if to set the piece ablaze; in the very first bar the timpani roll blots out the rest of the scoring, but conductors will tell you that’s Brahms’s fault, a result of his inexperience. Pollini (as previously with Böhm and Abbado) has shown that the first movement can wear a truthful aspect without being slow, but here the pace is so hot that he modifies it, with a quantitative easing, at his first entry. I’ve never felt happy when soloists do this because Brahms’s handover – as if to say, here you are, now you assume the continuity – is such a special moment and is predicated, surely, on a continuation ‘in’ time rather than ‘outside’ it. Why am I banging on about this detail? Because it exemplifies a failure of collaboration. It may be a small one but in this concerto, of all concertos, any reading which is not truly collaborative is going to fall short – conductor and soloist striking a spark off each other is only the start of it. Pollini continues with authority intact but part of the momentum Thielemann generated at the start has run into the sand. And I’d have liked more detailing of character. If your taste in the first movement is for an exploration in depth of a variegated romantic discourse, you may agree; and I particularly liked the performers on the other disc for showing that the finale can be light on its feet as well as fiery and exciting. With both versions I noted a habit common today to accompany any decrease in intensity of sound or harmonic movement with a slowing. Am I alone in finding lots of those otiose? You don’t play Brahms as if you’ve swallowed a metronome, of course not, but to compose the effect of a slowing into the music, when he wanted one, is one of his fingerprints. Thought for the day: the composer knew best – keep going when no slowing is indicated.