The Classics Explained series explores, in words and music, the major classical works of the concert hall. In an accessible and lively manner, Jeremy Siepmann looks at the history and the form of the great masterpieces of Western music.

There is perhaps no great piano concerto grander than the Brahms B flat. With the spaciousness of a symphony, the drama of an opera, the intimacy of a lullaby and the intertwining raptures of the greatest love songs, it touches on almost every emotion with extraordinary immediacy and power. Its virtuosity is spell-binding, yet always substantial. But how is it made? How does it grow? What holds it together? Here we explore the music from the inside out, and learn how it develops into a masterpiece.

Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat was written in 1881 - more than two decades after his first. It contains some of the most horrendously difficult music ever written for a pianist, according to Jeremy Siepmann, yet it opens in carefree, buoyant mode. This accessible analysis allows the listener to get to grips with the massive work in its totality. And, as always, in the comprehensive booklet Siepmann sets the background to the composer, the work, the period and the form.