Shortly after a rather unsuccessful performance of his Piano Concerto No. 1, Johannes Brahms wrote to Joseph Joachim in 1859: ?... asecond one will sound different.? Nevertheless, a good 20 years elapsed before that second concerto finally took form, and only in 1881 was he able to announce: ?I wanted to tell you that I have written a very small piano concerto with a tiny little delicate Scherzo.? Henle's piano reduction of this anything-but-little symphonic concerto presents the solo part as it appears in the respective, recently published volume of the Brahms Complete Edition (51486020). Lars Vogt has succeeded in taming the opulent piano writing withis fingerings. The refined arrangement of the complex orchestral part for the accompanying second piano stems from Johannes Umbreit.
