Himself a piano virtuoso, Johannes Brahms wrote two piano concertos separated by more than two decades. The second (in B-flat major) isn’t just iconic of Brahms’s trademark romanticism, it also contains Italianate sentiments. Written in four movements (more akin to symphonic form), this work testifies to Brahms’s maturity in wielding perfect balance between classicism and romanticism. The energy and spirit of the first concerto (in D minor) attest to the young Brahms’s deep reverence for Beethoven’s symphonic output and Schumann’s whimsical romanticism. This program is a veritable a journey through Brahms’s evolution in form and style.