The opening concert in Andris Nelsons's Brahms series features two masterworks of blazing intensity. Brahms's First Piano Concerto is an astonishing achievement for a 25-year-old, yet he felt so intimidated by Schumann's prediction that he was the man destined to 'take over the mantle of Beethoven' that he was 43 before going public with his all-encompassing First Symphony.










