JOHANNES BRAHMS

Elisabeth Brauß presents Brahms’s Intermezzo in C major, the third of his Four Piano Pieces, Op. 119. Written in May and June of 1893 while the composer was on holiday in the Austrian spa town of Bad Ischl, the pieces were immediately introduced to Ilona Eibenschütz, a pupil of the great Clara Schumann. She premiered them in London the following year when she was just 21. A recent BBC New Generation Artist praised by Gramophone for “the maturity and sophistication of her thoughtful interpretations”, Brauß revels in the inner-voice melody and the rhythmic subtleties, off-beat accents and syncopations of this quirky, skittish little piece.