BROADCASTS.com

I\u2019ve been meaning to record this one for a long time.

\n\n\n\n\n\nJohannes Brahms\n\n\n\n\u25b6\ufe0f\nBallade Op 10 No 4\n\n\nPaul Cantrell, piano\n\n\n\n\n\n\u2b07\ufe0f\nDownload\n\n\n(11:48 / 14.0 M)\n\n\n\n

This is one of those mysterious and introspective pieces like Chopin\u2019s nocturne 15.3 that has a strange logic all its own. It\u2019s low and, even in the crescendos, somehow hushed throughout. There\u2019s not a trace of virtuosic flashiness in it; it\u2019s definitely not a piece that\u2019s about the pianist. The way it unfolds is \u2026 well, a nice fellow from Paris named Frank who emailed me about piano recording, and who is also learning to play it, said it well: it\u2019s almost as if the whole piece were a single long phrase. And it ends by dissolving and fading away \u2014 a sentence without a period.

I would expect a piece like this to be a late work, from a composer with much wisdom and little to prove to the rest of the world \u2014 think, for example, of Beethoven\u2019s Opus 111 or Shostakovich\u2019s late string quartets \u2014 but Brahms wrote this when he was 21, or maybe 20. To see inside that young man\u2019s mind\u2026! The mystery deepens!

In spite of the mystery, or really because of it, this is one of my favorite pieces. My interpretation is a little unorthodox, but then so it the music. I hope you enjoy it!