New Brahms piano work debuted on BBC3

A recently discovered piano work by Johannes Brahms, “Albumblatt”, has received its world premier on BBC3 and performed by the pianist András Schiff. The work, written in 1853, was found inside an old book that used to belong to the director of music at the University of Göttingen in Germany and who Brahms probably knew well. The manuscript was found inside this book last year by the conductor and musicologist Christopher Hogwood in a library at Princeton University.

Some of this piece eventually found its way into Brahms’ Horn trio written 12 years later. But this work was written by a young Brahms around the age of 20, and was most likely a small gift to the director. Brahms was notorious for burning compositions of his that he felt were not fit for publication, and troves of his work, as well as letters to Clara Schumann, other friends and colleagues are lost forever. It is a rare occasion to a find a lost composition from a great composer such as Brahms.

The complete audio of the two minute and 16 second work can be found on the BBC’s website, although it seems that it is currently limited to people inside the UK only. Hopefully this will be available to people outside the country soon, unless one catches a repeat performance of it on the BBC3 Radio website.