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different." He was right on both points (though, in fact, he revised only some details). He became a master. For the solemn, sarabande-like slow movement of the D minor symphony-that-never-was, he found a beautiful use when he set to it the words "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass" in his German Requiem. And who would want the D minor concerto to be other than it is, great and with rough edges, daring and scarred, hard to make sound well, and holding in its Adagio, over which he once inscribed the words "Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini," all that in his painful, Werther-like loyalty and love he had felt about Robert and Clara Schumann? Michael Steinberg MICHAEL STEINBERG was the Boston Symphony Orchestra's Director of Publications from 1976 to 1979, having previously been music critic of the Boston Globe from 1964 to 1976. After leaving Boston he was program annotator for the San Francisco Symphony and then also for the New York Philharmonic. Oxford University Press has published three compilations of his program notes: "The Symphony—A Listener's Guide," "The Concerto—A Listener's Guide," and "Choral Masterworks—A Listener's Guide." Essays by Mr. Steinberg on a variety of musical subjects also appear in "For the Love of Music— Invitations to Listening," also from Oxford University Press. THE FIRST AMERICAN PERFORMANCE of music from the Brahms First Piano Concerto was of just the first movement, on December 9, 1871, in Boston, with Marie Krebs as soloist and Theodore Thomas conducting his orchestra. Leopold Godowsky was soloist for the first complete American performance on March 2, 1900, with Theodore Thomas conducting the Chicago Orchestra. the first BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PERFORMANCES of the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 took place in the BSO's first Symphony Hall season, on November 30 and December 1, 1900, with Wilhelm Gericke conducting and Harold Bauer as soloist. Bauer was also soloist for the next three series of performances: in 1914 under Karl Muck, in 1920 under Pierre Monteux, and in 1925 under Serge Koussevitzky. The concerto has been heard in BSO concerts more frequently since 1930, in performances featuring Artur Schnabel, Myra Hess, Ossip Gabrilowitsch, Leonard Shure, Rudolf Serkin, Claudio Arrau, and Rudolf Firkusny (all with Koussevitzky conducting), Arrau (with Richard Burgin), Jesus Maria Sanromd (with Leonard Bernstein), Solomon (with Charles Munch), Leon Fleisher (with Pierre Monteux), Rudolf Serkin and Gary Graffman (with Munch), Van Cliburn, Arthur Rubinstein, and Claude Frank (all with Erich Leinsdorf), Frank (with Burgin), Misha Dichter (with Michael Tilson Thomas), Rudolf Serkin, Maurizio Pollini, and Claudio Arrau (all with Seiji Ozawa), Garrick Ohlsson (Klaus Tennstedt), Firkusny (Eugene Ormandy), Marek Drewnowski (Leonard Bernstein), Daniel Barenboim (Ozawa and, more recently, llan Volkov), Emanuel Ax (Andrew Davis and Simon Rattle), John Browning (Jeffrey Tate), Krystian Zimerman (Simon Rattle), Yefim Bronfman (Antonio Pappano), Peter Serkin (Ozawa), and Emanuel Ax again (the most recent Tanglewood performance, on August 3, 2003, with Christoph von Dohndnyi; and the most recent subscription performances, in April and May 2007, with Bernard Haitink). i* WEEK 23 PROGRAM NOTES.

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