Two of Johannes Brahms’ most popular late piano pieces are now available as Urtext scores from Piano Street’s sheet music library. Recordings, of the two pieces performed by Henrik Sandback, have also been added.

Intermezzo in E-flat Major, Opus 117 No. 1

The three Intermezzi Op. 117 are probably the most well-known and best-loved of Brahms’s late piano pieces.
The composer described these pieces, all three of which are marked Andante, “lullabies to my sorrows”.  They were inspired by a Scottish poem from Herder´s Volkslieder, Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament, and bear this inscription:
Schlaf sanft mein Kind, schlaf sanft und Schön!/Mich dauert´s sehr, dich weinen sehn. (Sleep softly my child, sleep softly and well!/It hurts my heart to see you weeping.)

Intermezzo in A Major, Opus 118 No. 2

The second piece of Op. 118 is one of Brahms’s most beloved creations, a deeply lyrical and moving nocturne. The opus, consisting of six pieces, were sent as a gift to Clara Schumann immediately upon their completion. Brahms’ biographer Jan Swafford has surmised: “he may have composed the pieces to try and keep Clara Schumann going in body and soul. Since she could only play a few minutes at a time now, and because she loved these miniatures so deeply, maybe they did keep her alive.”

Between 1981 and 1984 Leonard Bernstein recorded nearly all of Brahms´s orchestral works with the Wiener Philharmoniker to honor the 150th anniversary of the composer´s birth in 1983. As an example of the unique Zimerman/Bernstein collaboration, here´s the second movement of the second Piano Concerto in B flat major Op. 83:

The outstanding Polish pianist, Krystian Zimerman won 1st prize at the international Frederick Chopin Piano Competition in Warszaw in 1975, which launched his international career. Krystian Zimerman then played with great success in Munich, London, Paris and Vienna. In 1976 he was soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker. He made his first American appearance in 1978, and subsequently toured throughout the world to great critical acclaim. He has performed with many exceptional orchestras and worked with some of the world’s most outstanding conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Herbert von Karajan, Bernard Haitink, Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Muti, Zubin Mehta, André Previn, Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, and Simon Rattle.

Victory in a significant competition does not always guarantee a blooming professional career. In fact, as the number of competitions constantly expands, instances of this are becoming increasingly rare. Publicly expressing his reluctance to piano competitions and the increasing standardisation of the performer ideals, Krystian Zimerman’s actions are deeply thought out and carefully planned. As a result, they are fewer and farther between. Zimerman generally avoids the limelight, limits the number of live performances he gives and records relatively infrequently. As a result, each artistic endeavor he decides upon is awaited eagerly and closely watched. On April 27, Zimerman created a furor in his debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles when he announced this would be his last performance in America because of the nation’s military policies overseas:

Article, Los Angeles Times

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EDIT 13 January 2008:
The audio files are no longer available
for free but will soon be added to the
Gold membership resources.

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We would like to wish you Happy Holidays with some of our new recordings for you to enjoy!

The seven new recordings below are freely available until 12 January 2009.

(The sheet music of the pieces are availabe for instant download within the Piano Street Gold membership by clicking the sheet music images.)

1. Johannes Brahms:

2. Johannes Brahms:

3. Franz Schubert:

4. Charles Mayer:

5. Matthew Camidge:

6. Samuel Maykapar

7. Anton Diabelli:

More sheet music for four hands is now available in our sheet music library.
Today we added the Waltzes, Opus 39 by Johannes Brahms.

We keep working on adding more four hands piano music. This is what has been added today:

Johannes Brahms:
Liebeslieder Waltzes Opus 52a
Liebeslieder Waltzes Opus 65a
This means that we now have the complete works for four hands by Brahms in our online library.

Claude Debussy:
Six Antique Epigraphs
Small Suite
Prelude, Cortège et Air de Danse
Prelude à l’Après-midi d’un Faune (for Two Pianos)

The 21 Hungarian Dances for Four Hands have been added to our sheet music library. The edition is originally published by Breitkopf & Härtel.
http://www.pianostreet.com/search/searchcollection.php?id=186