HIP Keyboard Recordings

[JoshLilly]

The Avie label came out with a CD called "The World's First Piano Concertos". I finally managed to grab a copy. It's just a marvelous disc. The pianist is David Owen Norris, with a string trio called here 'Ensemble Sonnerie'. The piano is really, really old. I mean, it doesn't even really sound like a modern piano at all. Norris claims that the piano concerto on it by Philip Hayes is the earliest-surviving concerto written specifically for piano (rather than a generic keyboard concerto).

On it, there are a few pieces I've heard before, and thought were pretty nice. I heard the Hook piano concerto a few years ago in some other recording, with a bigger orchestra and modern piano, and liked it fairly well. But here, on this CD, the same piece suddenly becomes one of the best things I've ever heard. It's the piano, the tiny "orchestra" (3 string instruments), it just feels, it sounds, so right. And apparently, this was the normal ensemble for which those English composers would have been writing a piano concerto. Sometimes, it can floor you, to realise the difference between a performance on modern instruments and scale, and trying to do what the composer wrote for.

You can find this CD at various outlets. It is my favourite purchase in several years, at the least; one of my favourite CDs in my entire collection, which is thousands strong.

[lukeottevanger]

This one came yesterday, at last. I've been waiting pretty impatiently!



The review at Amazon UK really whetted my appetite!

This is a complete HIP set, with the trios for which Haydn wrote with flute instead of violin in mind performed on that instrument. Fortepianist is Bart van Oort, whose work has really impressed me in Haydn before, on the complete Brilliant Haydn Sonata set, which was another sparkling, essential purchase. As on that set, this is sturdily, attratively and compactly packaged, and very well annotated - unless you knew what to expect from Brilliant you wouldn't guess it would be at super-bargain price, which in my case was £18 for the 10 disc set.

I only got time to listen to one trio last night, but this is evidently going to be an awesome disc, one of the best purchases I've made in a long time. I've never heard this music sound so vibrant and alive, tonally, with real zest and eventfulness, and on the evidence of the one trio I heard, van Oort et al seem to opt for a hyper-expressive style of interpretation in keeping with the extreme, private playfulness of these masterpieces. An unalloyed joy!

I'd add - having listened to a few more tracks and found my first impressions confirmed - that this is a set of works where the HIP approach really pays dividends. There is an inherent inbalance in using modern piano in the Trios, which is completely absent with fortepiano. With HIP the cello is revealed as an essential part of the tonal mix, for exmaple, rather than a pointless doubling of the piano's bass (in any event this is a cliche which doesn't hold so true in the later pieces). One realises that the objections raised to these trios by Tovey and others are allayed when they are heard on these instruments - they stand out as a real treasure trove of timbres. FWIW, though I adore my BAT Haydn Trios, and perhaps even more the gorgeous single CD I have of Schiff et al in some of the late Trios, both seem to recess the piano sound somewhat (in performance, not recording). They contain delicate, intimate playing which is very beautiful and affecting, but at no point can the pianist really 'let go' for fear of swamping his colleagues - which in works with such a rich vein of impulsive fantasy as these is rather sad. So for all their wonderful qualities those recordings really sound like a backwards-looking, overly-refined image of classicism rather than classicism-in-the-flesh. But in this HIP set van Oort is able to play out to his heart's content, and the music sounds totally different - alive and contemporary. So much for the misguided and out-of-date view that HIP is a kind of museum-culture re-enactment and only modern performance is real music making; in the Haydn Trios quite the oppopsite is revealed to be true: modern performances seem inhibited in comparison. But I'm preaching to the converted...

[Que]

Luke, thanks very much for your post!
I'll add this to my list...

I came across the Van Swieten Society of which Bart Van Oort is the Artistic Manager. Check their site!

Q

[lukeottevanger]

Thanks for that link - didn't know they had recorded so much tempting stuff - Mozart Trios and Quartet, Beethoven and Hummel Trios....ooh, and the G minor Quintet of Ries, whose B minor Quartet (as recorded by Riko Fukuda, one of van Oort's co-artists on the Haydn Sonata set, and her group the Nepomuk Quintet) I reviewed very happily a couple of posts back. A whole new area of repertoire opening up to me... Heading over to Amazon right now.

[SonicMan46]

This one came yesterday, at last. I've been waiting pretty impatiently!



This is a complete HIP set, with the trios for which Haydn wrote............

Luke - thanks for the review; that has been on my list for a number of weeks, and I just put in an Amazon Markeplace order yesterday!  Really looking forward to hearing these Haydn trios - 

Since we're talking HIP - just received the Brilliant 8-CD box set below of Carulli's Complete Works for Guitar & Fortepiano - just on the 3rd disc & outstanding; both instruments are original (fortepiano, 1812 & guitar, 1820) - already commented in the 'classic-early romantic' thread w/ a link to a great review.  Not sure I wanted 8 discs of these two instruments together, but the whole box was $23 @ BRO! 

[JoshLilly]

Wowee!  What is BRO???  I'd snatch that up in a heartbeat for that price. I love Carulli, and I love period instruments.

[SonicMan46]

Wowee!  What is BRO???  I'd snatch that up in a heartbeat for that price. I love Carulli, and I love period instruments.

Sorry, so well known here that the letters are just used; BRO = Berkshire Record Outlet, located in Massachusetts - they sell CDs at tremendously discounted prices (mostly OOP or overstocked items, but new) - e.g. a search of Brilliant Classics brought up 172 hits - click on the label name to see the results; of course, shipping might be an issue outside the USA (others can discuss that matter) - 

[Bunny]

I'm not sure this is the correct thread to ask about this recording which is performed on an Erard dating from about 1855, or about 30 or more years too early for the work.  However, I have heard such good things about this that I would love t hear if anyone else knows anything about this recording.

Patrick Cohen - Satie  (Available with 2 different covers)

 

[Leo K.]

The Avie label came out with a CD called "The World's First Piano Concertos". I finally managed to grab a copy. It's just a marvelous disc. The pianist is David Owen Norris, with a string trio called here 'Ensemble Sonnerie'. The piano is really, really old. I mean, it doesn't even really sound like a modern piano at all. Norris claims that the piano concerto on it by Philip Hayes is the earliest-surviving concerto written specifically for piano (rather than a generic keyboard concerto).

On it, there are a few pieces I've heard before, and thought were pretty nice. I heard the Hook piano concerto a few years ago in some other recording, with a bigger orchestra and modern piano, and liked it fairly well. But here, on this CD, the same piece suddenly becomes one of the best things I've ever heard. It's the piano, the tiny "orchestra" (3 string instruments), it just feels, it sounds, so right. And apparently, this was the normal ensemble for which those English composers would have been writing a piano concerto. Sometimes, it can floor you, to realise the difference between a performance on modern instruments and scale, and trying to do what the composer wrote for.

You can find this CD at various outlets. It is my favourite purchase in several years, at the least; one of my favourite CDs in my entire collection, which is thousands strong.

I'm listening to this disk right now (first time) and it is one of the most amazing recordings! Wow!

[milk]

I'm not sure this is the correct thread to ask about this recording which is performed on an Erard dating from about 1855, or about 30 or more years too early for the work.  However, I have heard such good things about this that I would love t hear if anyone else knows anything about this recording.

Patrick Cohen - Satie  (Available with 2 different covers)

 

I really love this recording. I've had the Burman-Hall recording for a while - on which she uses a more period-appropriate piano - but it never knocked me over the way the Cohen recording has. Cohen's Erard sounds wonderful and his interpretations really sparkle.