Album: Brahms – Piano Quartets Nos. 2 & 3
Artists: Krystian Zimerman (piano), Maria Nowak (violin), Katarzyna Budnik (viola), Yuya Okamoto (cello)
Composer: Johannes Brahms
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Released: 2025
Duration: 78 minutes
Streaming: Available on major platforms
By Damián Autorino
Editor at Moto Perpetuo
There are few pianists in today’s world who can release a new chamber music recording and immediately command global attention. But Krystian Zimerman is not just any pianist — and this Brahms album is not just another Brahms album.
What’s striking from the outset is Zimerman’s lifelong bond with chamber music. In the liner notes, he recalls the formative role his father played in fostering that passion in their home in Zabrze, Upper Silesia. His childhood was shaped not by virtuoso recitals, but by evenings of music-making with friends: from Strauss and Lehár to Mahler transcriptions. “It was a fantastic experience,” he remembers. “To feel this passion of making music together and be part of it.” That sensibility — of music as an intimate, shared craft — lies at the heart of this new recording.
The decision to focus on Piano Quartets Nos. 2 and 3, leaving out the more popular No. 1 in G minor, might seem surprising. But it’s precisely that — a kind of anti-commercial instinct — that gives this project its integrity. “That’s exactly why we won’t play it,” Zimerman says. “We will play No. 2 and No. 3 and make them the most famous!” There’s humour in that statement, but also a quiet sense of mission.
Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 26, with its expansive architecture and lyrical generosity, seems to mirror Zimerman’s chamber ideal: rich, open, and full of collaborative nuance. Its final movement, inflected with Hungarian folk rhythms, echoes the violinist Joseph Joachim’s influence — and the quartet responds with rhythmic alertness and spirit.
The Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60 stands in contrast: stormy, compressed, and emotionally charged. Its early drafts date from the 1850s, during the turmoil of Brahms’s early fame and his entanglement with Clara Schumann. Its eventual form, completed nearly twenty years later, bears traces of all that anguish. Brahms once joked that the score should feature an image of Goethe’s Werther “about to shoot himself.” The music never lapses into melodrama, but there’s a psychological depth that resonates through the quartet’s intense dialogues.
This duality — between the radiant intimacy of No. 2 and the raw introspection of No. 3 — is beautifully drawn out by the ensemble. Zimerman may be the marquee name, but this is no star-driven project. The quartet functions as a genuine collective, with each player given space to shine. Maria Nowak, Katarzyna Budnik, and Yuya Okamoto form a cohesive and expressive ensemble with Zimerman, each contributing to the music’s depth and vitality.
And yet, it’s hard not to hear Zimerman’s voice as the gravitational centre. His sound is luminous but never showy, his phrasing endlessly alive to the moment. At times, especially in the slow movements, there’s a kind of rapt stillness — as if the music were breathing on its own. His command of Brahmsian rhetoric, already evident in his legendary recordings of the two piano concertos with Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic, now finds its chamber counterpart: intimate, searching, and imbued with personal meaning.
There’s something rare and moving about this album. It doesn’t attempt to dazzle or to innovate for innovation’s sake. Instead, it listens — deeply — to the music, to the players, and to the long line of tradition behind it. And that, in a way, is Zimerman’s quiet rebellion: not against popularity, but in favour of depth.
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