by Peter Feher
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Johannes Brahms took more than two decades to compose a follow-up to his First Piano Concerto, but audiences at Severance Music Center have only had to wait two years for the sequel.
Pianist Daniil Trifonov is back with The Cleveland Orchestra this week, tackling Brahms’ monumental Second Concerto after playing the First here in 2023. And in a neat pairing, Music Director Franz Welser-Möst has programmed Sergei Prokofiev’s Seventh Symphony as the companion piece — the Sixth having accompanied Trifonov on his previous appearance.
Reversing the usual performance order (soloist on the first half, big symphonic work on the second), Brahms was the main event after intermission Thursday in Mandel Concert Hall. It’s a sensible way to present a piece that often resembles a symphony in style, scope and sheer impact.
Brahms was at the peak of his compositional powers when he completed his Second Piano Concerto in 1881. He had spent much of his career struggling to write for orchestra, but a series of successes, beginning with his First Symphony in 1876, proved to the public and to himself that he had mastered large-scale forms. In fact, he now had an excess of material. That’s surely how an extra movement, initially intended for his Violin Concerto, wound up repurposed in this piano work of staggering proportions.
Across 45 minutes that demanded not just mighty technique but also a mature musical vision, Trifonov savored the smallest moments, his fingers flitting almost imperceptibly over the keys. Some of the heft and grandeur that typically characterize Brahms may have been missing in the opening Allegro, but each subsequent movement allowed Trifonov to deepen his interpretation. He tapped into his more furious side for the Scherzo and then brought his full sensitivity to bear on the Andante, responding to the exquisite solo playing of principal cello Mark Kosower.
The jaunty final movement showed everyone at their best: Trifonov delighting in a delicate touch, the orchestra and Welser-Möst cultivating a transparent sound in support and Brahms reminding us that not all music has to be weighty or serious.
Thursday’s concert got off to a deceptively light start with Prokofiev’s Seventh Symphony, a piece commissioned for children and sometimes dismissed as little more than that. But a close listen suggests that the Soviet composer put a lifetime of experience into this score, his last major work before his death in 1953.
Aspects of the symphony that at first appear simple — like the short staccato notes that pop up in each movement — soon evoke a world of emotion. Those notes begin in a kind of innocence on glockenspiel but transform as different instruments join in, shifting from sinister (bass drum) to comical (violas) to macabre (xylophone). The ultimate effect is consoling as the percussion section winds down the piece in a fading series of repetitions.
Welser-Möst and the orchestra are keenly attuned to Prokofiev’s many musical fluctuations, having made a project of performing and recording the composer’s symphonies in recent seasons.
Trifonov served as a kindred spirit on Thursday, concluding with an encore of another meditation by Prokofiev: The quiet yet unforgettable final movement from the piano suite “Visions Fugitives.”
Published on ClevelandClassical.com October 15, 2025
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