At a ceremony on 4 December 2025, Presto Music announced their ten ‘Classical Recordings of the Year’, and we are delighted that Francesco Piemontesi was honoured with this prestigious award for his recording Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 & Three Intermezzi, Op. 117.
Of the recording, Presto wrote ““Power and expression without harshness” is how Piemontesi describes his pianistic ideal, and that could hardly be better demonstrated than in this tremendous performance of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2, in which he contrasts great heft in the second movement with graceful, delicate passagework in the fourth. Manfred Honeck and the Gewandhausorchester are ideal partners, bold and muscular in the big orchestral tuttis, yet delicate and tender as required, with a yearning cello solo at the start of the third movement.’ (James Longstaffe)
