The Minería Symphony Orchestra’s 2026 Summer Season continues with a program devoted entirely to Johannes Brahms, featuring two monumental works—both in scale and historical significance: the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor and Symphony No. 1 in C minor.
This program will be presented on Saturday, July 11, at 8:00 p.m. in the Silvestre Revueltas Hall at the Ollin Yoliztli Cultural Center, and on Sunday, July 12, at 5:00 p.m. in the Main Hall of the Palacio de Bellas Artes, with Artistic Director Carlos Miguel Prieto conducting the orchestra and pianist Lilya Zilberstein as the guest soloist.
Piano Concerto No. 1 marks Brahms’s first major foray into orchestral composition, while Symphony No. 1 reveals a composer who took more than 20 years to tackle the symphonic form. Zilberstein, for his part, brings strength, clarity, and maturity to a work of immense difficulty. Here are some tips for getting the most out of this program.
Johannes Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1: A Symphony with the Piano at Its Center
Brahms did not conceive this work as a concerto from the outset: he first imagined it as a symphony, but that form made him uncomfortable. So he tried to turn it into a sonata for two pianos. Neither solution convinced him; in the end, the work took shape as a concerto for piano and orchestra. The result retains an immense scale, and for that reason, the piano does not appear merely as a showpiece: it engages in dialogue, debates, and stands its ground against the orchestra.
This was Brahms’s first major orchestral work, and also a challenging piece for its time. Some critics considered it noisy, dry, and unclear, and the audience did not take to it easily either. Part of that reaction can be explained by its scale: Brahms wrote a massive, dense, and dramatic concerto that lasts nearly three-quarters of an hour. Its musical language looks to Beethoven, but also toward Brahms’s inner world.
Robert Schumann, a close friend of Brahms, also features prominently in the work. Some sources link the first movement to Schumann’s suicide attempt in the Rhine River, while other analysts place that reference in the second movement. In the original score, the Adagio bore a Latin phrase—Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, which means “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”
The work consists of three movements:
- Majestic
- Adagio
- Tempo: Allegro non troppo
The "Maestoso" opens with a sweeping, powerful sense of tension. The "Adagio" takes the music into an intimate and contemplative realm. The final "Rondo" unleashes energy without losing the work's dramatic weight.
Fun fact: Brahms premiered the work on January 22, 1859, in Hanover, where he himself played the solo part while Joseph Joachim conducted the orchestra. Shortly thereafter, the work was performed in Leipzig, and that second performance was a failure: the audience booed the piece. Brahms was just 25 years old.
Lilya Zilberstein: Guest Soloist
Lilya Zilberstein will be the guest soloist for Program 2. The Russian pianist has performed with some of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the London Symphony, the La Scala Philharmonic, and the Simón Bolívar Orchestra, under the baton of conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Gustavo Dudamel, Christoph Eschenbach, Paavo Berglund, John Axelrod, and Antoni Witt.
Her discography includes 15 albums, among which the highlights are Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concertos No. 2 and No. 3 with the Berlin Philharmonic. Zilberstein won first prize at the Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition, as well as the Award for Excellence from the Chigiana Music Academy in Siena. In addition to her work as a soloist, she teaches at the AMC Music School and gives master classes at international festivals.
Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 1: Writing in the Shadow of Beethoven
The second part of the program will be dedicated to the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, one of Brahms’s great obsessions. The composer began working on it around 1855, and it took him more than 20 years to complete it.
Brahms knew what the public expected of him: many saw him as Beethoven’s natural heir, and that expectation weighed heavily on his work. In a letter to conductor Hermann Levi, Brahms wrote: “You have no idea what it’s like to live in the shadow of that giant.” That phrase sums up the conflict at the heart of the work: Brahms did not want to imitate Beethoven, but he could not ignore him either. Symphony No. 1 was born out of that tension.
The process was long, slow, and fraught with doubts. The first movement took him several years, and Brahms then set the work aside for a time, returning to it in the 1870s. Before completing it, he gained more experience with orchestras: he conducted choirs and ensembles, and composed works such as the German Requiem and the Variations on a Theme by Haydn. That learning is evident in Symphony No. 1, which does not seek easy effects: its strength lies in its focus, and its language is clear, restrained, and compact.
The skepticism toward this work was not just a rumor among specialized critics; it was reported in the press of the time. The Evening Transcript in Boston, in January 1878, wrote that the symphony contained “a great deal of superfluous material and constant repetitions,” and the Courier in the same city was even harsher: it described it as “morbid, tense, and unnatural,” and “almost entirely ugly.” Other media outlets, however, defended the work from the outset: the Boston Daily Advertiser in Boston described it as “an admirable expression of these anguished and introverted times.” The symphony divided opinion from the moment of its first international reception.
The work premiered on November 4, 1876, in Karlsruhe, under the direction of Felix Otto Dessoff. Later, Hans von Bülow called it “Beethoven’s Tenth,” a comparison that Brahms did not like. And he was right to be upset, because Symphony No. 1 is not a continuation of Beethoven, but rather Brahms’s response to a vast musical tradition. It is one of von Bülow’s paradoxes: the same conductor who associated the symphony with Beethoven also summed up his devotion to Brahms with a phrase that would become famous: “I believe in Bach the Father, in Beethoven the Son, and in Brahms the Holy Spirit of Music.”
The piece has four movements:
- A little sostenuto – Allegro
- Andante sostenuto
- A little allegretto e grazioso
- Adagio – Più andante – Allegro non troppo ma con brio
The first movement opens solemnly, and the music unfolds with tension, weight, and a sense of tragedy. The second movement offers a more lyrical space, whose intensity depends not on volume but on expressive depth. The third movement brings grace and respite: it is not a violent scherzo, but an elegant pause within a large-scale work. The fourth movement leads the symphony toward a powerful affirmation. The music seems to move from darkness toward a broader light, but that path is not simple: Brahms offers not an easy victory, but an inner triumph.
After this symphony, Brahms lost his fear of the symphonic form, and his other three symphonies followed much more quickly. The Second premiered in 1877, the Third in 1883, and the Fourth in 1885.
Brahms: Doubt, Strength, and Symphonic Affirmation
Come and experience, in a single concert, both the passion of the 25-year-old who defied his era with his Piano Concerto No. 1 and the imposing maturity of the genius who managed to emerge from Beethoven’s shadow with his Symphony No. 1.
We look forward to seeing you this weekend for Program 2 of our 2026 Summer Season to experience a monumental Brahms performance.
