The second release of Ivo Varbanov on ICSM Records presents early piano works by Johannes Brahms, his Piano Sonata no. 1 in C major, Op. 1, the Scherzo, Op. 4, and the four Ballades, Op. 10. All three piano works were performed at crucial moments in Brahms's life: the Piano Sonata was the focus of one of the most romantic ‘first encounters’ in musical history. The handsome 20-year-old-unknown from Hamburg presented himself at Robert Schumann’s house in Düsseldorf on 1 October 1853. Schumann invited him to play something, and he sat down to begin the C major Sonata. ‘Visit from Brahms, a genius’, wrote Schumann in his diary for that day.