Brahms 3

Tongue firmly in cheek, Brahms told his friends he’d composed ‘a little piano concerto with a teeny-weeny wisp of a scherzo’. Auckland favourite Alexander Gavrylyuk returns for this majestic work on a symphonic scale, with glorious solos for horn and cello.

Brahms’ Third Symphony opens with forceful, uncompromising music and ends with the same music unexpectedly, miraculously transformed. If we thought it had a programme, we might say the restful close of this tempestuous work was the acceptance of life’s troubles.