Brahms 4 Ballades op. 10 / Beatrice Berrut, Piano

00:00 Andante
04:54 Andante
11:39 Intermezzo - Allegro
16:03 Andante con moto

A few - imaginary but based on true facts - words from Julius Allgeyer on his deathbed, reflecting on his friendship with Brahms and the influence the book "Stimmen der Völker" had on his composing, especially in the first Ballade op.10.

"As I lie dying, there's one more story I wanted to tell you. It has weighed on my shoulders for a long time, and if time has erased the melancholy, it sometimes reappears and saddens me suddenly. Long ago, I had a very dear friend named Johannes. He was a young man from the North, he had ice-blue eyes and golden hair, he was soft and pure as an angel. He was a member of the Schumann circle and I had met him in Düsseldorf on my return from exile in Switzerland. An extremely gifted musician, Schumann considered him from the very first meeting the prophet of the century, God's messenger. He took him under his wing and the young Johannes came to live in Düsseldorf. At that time he had few financial means and ate every day at the Schumann home, who were eager to bring him out of his material precariousness.I would see him regularly and I remember that evening when I understood that his fate was sealed. We were sitting in a Stube and I observed him, silent and walled in his spleen. His eyes were lost in the void and he didn't seem interested in the beer we had just been served. From his being emanated a strange glow, he carried on his face the expression of suffering. I asked him about the reason that could well distract him from the pleasures that usually filled him. It was a dramatic period, Robert Schumann had completely lost his senses and had been interned in Endenich. Johannes had become the confidant of his lonely wife, Clara. The blow of fate had brought them closer and he finally confided to me, in a strangled voice, that he had fallen madly in love with her. He considered his feelings like a betrayal of a friend and protector, and that was eating away at him day by day. He confessed to me that the Ballads he had composed that summer of 1854 were dedicated to this beloved woman. I shuddered when I learned that the first of them was based on the Scottish poem "Edward" from a collection I had given him some time before. This poem was about a patricide. I couldn't help but make the connection between Johannes and Edward, who had killed his father on the advice of his mother. This connection put me in a state of deep agitation! Was Johannes symbolically killing Schumann, driven by Clara's mute voice? Everything was as usual in this low room; the cigar smoke was stagnant, diffused, under the woodwork of the ceiling, the glasses clinked and laughter charged with alcohol and tobacco resonated. Yet it seemed to me that all I could hear was the distant song of a bagpipe, and Edward's desperate plea for redemption.My friend died three years ago, and as I watched him that night I knew that he would never be happy or find love, and his wanderings in the brothels of Vienna, his excessive drinking at the "Red Hedgehog", were nothing but insipid escapes. Could I have helped him? It was his destiny to get lost in an unreachable light. The only thought that comforts me on this day of farewell is that his great sorrow has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration for generations to come. What a gift this man's work will have been for humanity!"

Recorded at théâtre du Crochetan on a Bösendorfer VC280 by FNX Music, Romont.
With special thanks to Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik and FNX for their kind support.
Picture and sound: Christian Berrut and Vincent Roch.

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