BRAHMS (transcr. Keller) Symphony No. 2 • Pianist Nada (pn) • 4TAY 4074 (Download: 41:27) Reviewed from a WAV download: 48 kHz/16-bit

After completing all of Brahms’s solo piano music, it seemed quite logical to me that Pianist Nada decided to move next to the symphonies as arranged for solo piano. These are some of his greatest works, and I have no doubt he worked through their composition at the piano. He did make piano duet and two-piano versions of all of his symphonies, as did many composers up well into the 20th century, but few (if any) of them made solo piano arrangements. The composers generally left it to others to do solo arrangements if that was what their publishers wanted. This not to say that solo piano versions of hundreds (thousands?) of symphonies don’t exist. Liszt famously did all nine of Beethoven’s Symphonies which set the solo piano version bar exceptionally high. Nada’s rendition of Brahms’s First Symphony (4Tay 4068, see Fanfare 46:2, Nov/Dec 2022) used a transcription by Otto Singer II. Here the Second Symphony is played in an 1880 arrangement by Robert Keller.

Nada is a U.S. citizen with Leba­nese/Hungarian parents, born in Beirut. Her early music training was made quite difficult by the civil war in Lebanon, which also claimed the life of her mother. For most of her pianistic life she has been deeply involved in the music of Brahms. Nada has already recorded an admirable set of a dozen or so discs covering all of Brahms’s solo piano music. These actually date back to her first CD, under the name Nada Loutfi. All of her discs are available online at her website (pianistnada.com), and most are available at CD Baby or Amazon. The current disc has a front and back cover and 4Tay catalog number. On Nada’s website it is listed as download only. Amazon offers only an electronic version as well. I have no information as to the timing of availability for the physical CD, if indeed it is to be released in that format.

Robert Keller (1828–1891) worked as a music editor for the Simrock publishing house and arranged a substantial number of works by Brahms and Dvořák. His scores for all the Brahms Symphonies are available on imslp.com, along with some unusual arrangements for one piano four hands of Brahms’s Haydn Variations and all three violin sonatas. Nada states that she didn’t make any changes to his version of Symphony No. 2 and that she believes it was reviewed by Brahms himself. It is truly amazing how much can be captured by 10 fingers, and Nada’s pianistic skills and sensitivity to the music are at the forefront of this recording.