One could lose oneself among the multitude of German orchestras, so active is musical life in that great musical country. But these orchestras' many fusions can render reality somewhat opaque. This is the case with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie which offers us here a new recording of Brahms' First Piano Concerto in D minor with Joseph Moog, coming on the heels of the recording of the Second, which was released in 2017. This orchestra, founded in 2007, was the product of a merger between the Saarbrücken and Kaiserlautern Radio Orchestras, whose total membership has fallen from 152 to 98 musicians today.
Born in Germany in 1987, pianist and composer Joseph Moog is one of Germany's emerging pianists. At the stand, Australian conductor Nicholas Milton lends the long, famous orchestral introduction a serene atmosphere closer to the melancholic Brahms of his later years than to the youthful, raging fire of the First Concerto. This is confirmed in Joseph Moog's style: the pianist takes his time, and gives the whole work a dreamy, rather dishevelled quality. In this rendition, the final four Klavierstücke, Op. 119 have much the same feeling to them. © François Hudry/Qobuz