Romantic Piano Concertos Series Hyperion

[kyjo]

After so much generic music, it's nice to turn to the really distinctive concerto by Alnaes, which I've known since checking this CD out of my college campus library 15 years ago. It's quite an eccentric concerto. The melodies have unusual shapes - Nordic, we could say? - and the first movement has a triumphant ebullience that is usually reserved for finales. There is a cyclical element in that a particularly memorable (if somewhat sentimental) tune from the first movement returns in the slow movement, and there is certainly an element of early Hollywood to some passages. (Alnaes died before Hollywood scores took off; the booklet does not say when the piano concerto was written, except that it was after 1900.)

This piece is so distinctive and so much tremendous fun that even the less successful bits are forgiveable. And I haven't even mentioned the delightful waltz finale. In a weird way, I feel like Alnaes concerto fans and George Lloyd symphony fans should be a mostly overlapping circle. The big tunes, splashy orchestration, overall optimistic worldview, and vague feeling that maybe this should be a guilty pleasure, like eating a rich dessert instead of your vegetables...

To the bolded text - that's an entirely fair assumption, at least in my case! Glad you enjoyed the Alnaes concerto, which, as I've mentioned before, is one of my most treasured PCs in the whole repertoire. I love how the life-affirming, ebullient nature of the outer movements is perfectly balanced by the somber, even tragic tone of the slow movement. Not to mention the plethora of memorable tunes that the work contains, especially in the waltz-like finale. Don't hesitate to check out Alnaes' two symphonies which are just as tuneful and enjoyable. They've both been recorded on Sterling Records, and the 1st exists in a marginally preferable recording on LAWO Classics (coupled with the PC).

[Brian]

Oops! It had to happen sometime! I listened to these, wrote a review post here, saved the draft to my drafts folder, and then forgot about it and the draft auto-deleted. So my notes are gone. But I think these were memorable enough I can describe them again without listening a second time.

The Bowen concertos are exactly why this series exists. They were vivid, colorful, and in the case of the 18-minute one-movement No. 3 "Fantasia," very energetic and full of tunes. No. 4 is more "legendary," in the sense that it has the mysterious medieval vibe of some Bax tone poems or impressionist Vaughan Williams. It's mostly slower and quieter, thus not a piece likely to be in concert halls often/ever, so it's great to have this disc. Danny Driver does exceptional work.

The Jadassohn pieces are both short and the First especially is like a konzertstuck - very very short fast intro, slow movement, "Ballade" finale. Darn it, I know I wrote something interesting about the "Ballade" and about the Second Concerto, but I don't remember them at all. Ugh! I do remember the Draeseke concerto was very post-Brahmsish and satisfyingly hefty. Guess this wasn't as memorable but I do have a positive feeling about it.



Julius Benedict was a German who studied with Hummel, settled in London, and frequently performed his own concertos. (The E flat was expanded from a concertino, and you can kind of tell because it has a 17-minute first movement.) His first concerto, in C minor, has Hummel's easy lyricism and gentle demeanor (the minor key is not very threatening), and there are some nice touches, like the surprising early entry of the piano and the piano-cello duet that forms the second theme. The second concerto, the one expanded, did not really need expansion. That huge first movement is rather sleepy except for the big central cadenza. And, honestly, so is the rest.

Walter Macfarren was a Brit inspired by Mendelssohn, and his brief Concertstuck is at its most interesting at the beginning, when the E minor key gives it unusual flavor.

Hyperion's PR material for this disc says that it's proof that the UK was not as barren a musical wasteland as its reputation suggests in the pre-Elgar era. I'm not so sure.



Both of Wilhelm Stenhammar's concertos are big (45 and 30 minutes), bold (in B flat minor and D minor), and symphonic (in four movements). The First starts with a simple two-chord interval motto, and then the piano soloist takes off. The first movement is mostly moderate in tempo and temperature, but has some cool moments. There's a quick scherzo and then a slow nocturne that has some really magical muted-violin romantic moments at the end. The finale seems a little too stuck in the shadow of Brahms' First Concerto, except for a moonlit Nordic andante in the center and a surprising quiet ending. Ultimately the piece feels overlong and overbaked, and I think you could salvage a great 30-minute concerto from it with some editing. Not bad for an Op. 1, however!

No. 2 has a strange structure; it starts quietly with the piano soloist, and then the orchestra tries to change the key. Throughout what the booklet calls an "improvisatory" structure, the piano and orchestra fight over what key the piece should be in, with the pianist of course winning in the end and opting for a victorious D Major finale with a tremendous Big Tune. There are all sorts of twists and turns. It's a truly bizarre piece, but I say that as a compliment: it's unpredictable, ear-catching, and super entertaining. I might try the rival Naxos recording.



Well, of course, we all know at least one of these. Stephen Hough's complete cycle is excellent, and it's also super-complete: the Second is recorded with the original uncut slow movement, then supplemented with the heavily cut version that was recorded 50+ years ago, and also a version edited by Hough himself to, he thinks, improve the balance between the three soloists in this movement. He gives a justification in the booklet but my ears are too familiar with the original (No. 2 is my favorite of the concertos) to give it a fair hearing.

Tempos are fast across the board, and this approach comes off much better than in Hough's Saint-Saens cycle. There are a couple of solo song transcriptions for encores, too. I suspect that everyone already has their own cycles of this music and there's not much purpose to a detailed review here. I like this one.

EDIT: Looks like I am on pace to finish this listening project around mid-March

[Wanderer]

*8 months later*

Motivation speech needed! 

[Brian]

*8 months later*

Motivation speech needed! 

   
I said March...I didn't say which year... 

[Brian]

Wilhelm Taubert and Jacob Rosenhain share some parallels: Taubert born in 1811, Rosenhain in 1813, both living until the 1890s, both falling into the social circle of Schumann. Schumann praised Taubert's first piano concerto as one of the best, though he noted that Taubert stole the structure from Mendelssohn's First Concerto. Schumann invited Rosenhain to write reviews for his magazine, but after Rosenhain moved to Paris, Schumann thought that Parisian style was worsening the quality of his compositions.

Taubert's Concerto No. 1 is in the unusual key of E Major and radiates the serenity common to that key. It is indeed modeled on Mendelssohn's example, but with notably less drama. It feels more like a short concerto by Ries. It's pleasant, but not at all memorable, and the slow movement contains a lot of oboe. (The three movements run continuously, and it isn't easy to tell where one ends and the next begins.)

No. 2 dates from 40 years later, but the biggest change is the most old-fashioned: the addition of a slow introduction. Other than that and the key of A, it's basically the same; it's for a relatively small classical orchestra, with most of the work this time given to the strings.

Rosenhain's concerto is similar in structure but longer and in D minor. I actually found it more memorable and agreeable - a decent imitation of Mendelssohn or Schumann. I like the slow movement's cello melody especially. The best thing on the disc, but that is faint praise.

This one's good if you want to take a nap.



Hermann Goetz is the ideal CPO composer, a German romantic with a decent penchant for melody who died of tuberculosis at age 35 and was instantly forgotten. His piano concerto is a 41-minute monster, but it is a happy piece, written during the best time in his life, when he was recovering from illness, making business connections with Raff and Brahms, and newly married. As always with Goetz, the tunefulness and optimism help forgive other deficiencies. It's really a rather nice listen, and as the booklet points out, the orchestration is thoughtfully done, favoring solo winds and dialogue with the piano. A surprise is the quiet ending of the first movement, leading directly into the slow movement.

One funny line from the booklet: Goetz warned a possible performer that you need the technique of Chopin's Etudes Opp. 10 and 25 in order to play the concerto. That's optimistic self-importance. 

Jozef Wieniawski is the second-most-famous and second-best composer named Wieniawski. He lived much longer than his older brother Henryk, and he had a style that foregrounded the virtuoso soloist even more than Henryk's. The orchestra does a lot of sitting back and relaxing in this concerto, which alternates some G minor sturm und drang (especially in the big cadenza) with music of a similar gentleness and friendliness to Goetz'. The finale is kind of a pale imitation of the finale of Brahms' First.

Somewhat better than the previous CD, but still basically pleasant background music.



My first listen to Reger's concerto. I thought it was one of those hourlong monsters like Busoni's, but it's shorter than the Goetz.  It just feels like it's an hour long...OK, I kid...well, sort of. It's clearly indebted to Brahms' First and full of sturm und drang. The melodic ideas are memorable through their weirdness, rather than catchiness or ear-pleasing qualities. Hamelin storms through the first movement like a man possessed.

The slow movement is my favorite. Again there are echoes of Brahms, but the spareness of the piano part at times also has a certain stillness that foreshadows Mompou. It's really beautiful stuff. Hamelin's nimble, dance-ish articulation really elevates the finale. The ending is pretty impressive. Overall, this work blends in to some of the other obscurities in this series, and while I would rate it higher than almost all of them, I don't know that I'd necessarily have known it was from a big name or was a cult piece. The dazzlingly hard-sounding piano part is most memorable, though, and calls for a Hamelin-type figure.

Strauss' Burleske is one of the most famous pieces in the series, though it is somewhat out of fashion now for its unprogrammable length and gangly goofiness. Hamelin & Co. barrel through it like party animals. Hamelin's piano is also very forward in the balance and sounds gigantic. I would prefer the old Janis RCA recording in a louder environment because the greater dynamic range on this one means the timpani are harder to hear in the opening bars. But I can't think of another recording that's preferable. This is one of the best recordings of Burleske I've ever heard.



Frederick Cowen was a Victorian-era composer who wrote his Concertstück (note the bizarre spelling) for Paderewski when that pianist toured England. It's clearly modeled on Liszt: one movement in continuously flowing sections, alternating major and minor keys, with lots of showoffy playing. It's actually quite a lot of fun, and it's short enough that, with the constantly shifting moods, even if you find a part boring, it will be over soon. I'd recommend it to fans of the Liszt concertos and the French romantic concerto repertoire as well (Saint-Saens, Franck, d'Indy, etc.).

Arthur Somervell scored his biggest career success with his Normandy Variations, based on a very short 8-bar melody, which he breaks up into parts and then varies bit by bit. It was popular at first because it was premiered and toured by Donald Tovey as pianist. As late as 1943, English orchestras still included it in their regular repertoire. I'm not sure why it faded after that: you'd think that 1944-45 would have been a banner year for Normandy Variations performances. There is a somewhat defiant, heroic mood to the main melody, which is repeated several times in the first three minutes to establish it in your memory before a short piano cadenza and then the 17 minutes of variations. It's reasonably entertaining, and the main tune holds the piece together well, but I do understand why it eventually faded into obscurity. Still, this is one of the "I'm glad this series exists, to record these works" volumes, not one of the "We didn't need to hear these works again" volumes of the series.

Somervell's Highland Concerto is a descendant of Mackenzie's Scottish Concerto, though Somervell claims to have written all original melodies instead of borrowing known folk tunes. But it sounds entirely Scottish, even more so than Mackenzie, from the ultra-folksy opening melody onward. It's a little bit campy, a little bit cheesy, and entirely delightful and successful. Thumbs up.

This is, by the way, an all Martin/Martyn production. Even the BBC Scottish Symphony replaced its whole string section with nothing but Martins/Martyns to preserve the theme.



I own this one! Widor is of course better known for his organ works, but his piano concertos are just as fabulous. Piano Concerto No. 1 starts with a rather thoughtful first movement that doesn't quite live up to its "con fuoco" marking. This, however, yields to a slow movement that is genuinely magical, with hair-standing-on-end type serene beauty in the last 3 minutes especially. I've heard this disc a few times but still felt a little bit of astonishment at the greatness of these few minutes. The finale's main tune is so catchy, but so frivolous, that it might actually work against the concerto. The movement is overall a Saint-Saens-like scherzo-romp with varied and fun episodes, but that tune is just so silly. It sounds like a drinking song for dwarves.

The Fantaisie is a one-movement treasure chest that puts Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saens, and Franck together. The structure is impossible to decipher, but the episodes are all fun, the tunes frequently memorable. (Try resisting the moment that begins at 18:40. The piano's re-entry is so, so fun.)

Piano Concerto No. 2 is a tight 20 minutes, in a dramatic C minor. The arc to major key moves quickly and efficiently. It's less lush and romantic than the earlier pieces, more modern.

One of the series' great treasures.



Here is what I wrote about Kalkbrenner on the previous page:

Friedrich Kalkbrenner was the most popular pianist in Paris when Chopin arrived - and promptly stole his spotlight. He reportedly told Chopin, "After my death or when I stop playing, there will be no representative of the great pianoforte school," an amazing example of a brag that is also an insult. Chopin nevertheless dedicated one of his concertos to Kalkbrenner, one of many examples of the pompous fellow's brushes with true greatness (as a youngster he spent time with Haydn, Beethoven, Hummel, and Clementi).

The concertos illustrate quickly how Chopin was able to brush the once-great man aside. Kalkbrenner's music has more Germanic seriousness than Herz, suiting his pomposity, but once the stormy minor-key beginning is over, it's all piano fireworks and precise virtuosity all the rest of the way. Hurwitz finds it engaging and fun (a 9/9 score), but I find all the constant up-and-down pianism a little tedious and tiresome.

No. 2 clears the low bar of the previous CD because it's in E minor, an inherently dramatic and interesting key. Listen out in the first movement at 12:54-58 for a truly eye-popping example of what sounds, to my ear, like bitonality?? In 1826?? Anyone with a streaming account want to tell me what's happening there?? The booklet offers no comment. And, by the way, after the first movement the minor-key drama never returns. For its era, this is sub-Ries but not totally dull.

No. 3, in A minor, is much shorter, since the slow movement is a mere short introduction to the following rondo. It's more of the same, though there's a tiny hint of Italian orchestration in the first movement (the use of piccolo). The disc ends with an Adagio ed Allegro di bravura, which is pure fluff with some hunting horns for color.



The Swedish composer Adolf Wiklund wrote his three pieces for piano and orchestra between 1902 (age 23) and 1917 (age 38) and lived for another 33 years after that without achieving the same kind of success. But it really was success in his era: the two concertos remained in the Swedish repertoire until the 1970s, and Wilhelm Backhaus performed the shorter Second. Wiklund was a friend and informal student of Stenhammar (who was only 8 years older) and, as an adult, an actual student of Busoni.

Concerto No. 1 is a sweeping E minor epic that begins with the piano virtuosically laying out a Big Dramatic Tune with a decided Nordic feel to it. The concerto is high romantic stuff with good melodies and the influences of Stenhammar and Brahms. It's eccentric at times (muted trumpets in the slow movement), but basically delivers exactly what I want from the series: drama, beauty, and a whole lot of piano playing. There's also a quite grandiose final peroration that flips to the major key, and the piece ends with a big drum roll and final flourish. Lots of fun.

Between the two concertos on the disc is the early (age 23) Konsertstycke, Op. 1. This was written for young Wiklund to introduce himself as pianist to Stockholm audiences, in a premiere conducted by Tor Aulin. It's considerably gentler and more pastoral in mood, written in C with a moderate orchestral introduction, then a piano cadenza. Most of it is fairly routine, at a moderate tempo and with pedestrian themes, though the last few minutes accelerate gently into a toccata-like conclusion.

Concerto No. 2 is compact - three movements of 8 minutes each - and has a more assertive Nordic style that is much closer to the brawny energy and melodic eccentricity of Stenhammar and Nielsen. It's not as memorable as the idea of a Nielsen piano concerto sounds, but it is punchy and fun.

The booklet says that Wiklund revised his two concertos later in life, but did such a poor job, with many "obvious mistakes," and with inconsistent revisions to different orchestral parts, that the performers on this disc mostly ignore the revisions! The only one they really accept is a cut in No. 1.



This is yet another of the entries devoted to life before the innovators: Paris before Chopin arrived and Germany before Liszt arrived. I have a disc of Pixis piano trios on Hyperion which I enjoy quite a lot, and Thalberg is famous (relatively speaking) for his Lisztian solo opera fantasies for piano.

The Pixis concerto and concertino date from the mid-1820s, and sound like early Schubert or perhaps Hummel. I like the concerto's slow movement, which leads directly into the finale a la Beethoven. Thalberg's piece dates from 1830, making it a very early work in his career. I think I hear trombone early on, but once the piano enters, it largely accompanies itself with a busy, virtuosic part. You can tell he was a tremendous pianist.

Generally speaking, these Howard Shelley in Tasmania volumes are my least favorites in the series, because they all come from the era of Beethoven but from composers who were writing at the dead end of the previous style, with lots of empty virtuosity and "crowd-pleasing" effects for the fashions of the time. But this is definitely one of the better-crafted volumes in that era, and Pixis and Thalberg are certainly a level about Kalkbrenner or Herz. Pleasant entertainments.

[Florestan]

Concertstück (note the bizarre spelling)

Strauss' Burleske is one of the most famous pieces in the series, though it is somewhat out of fashion now for its unprogrammable length and gangly goofiness.

Hans von Bülow called it "a complicated piece of nonsense" and refused to premiere it. 

The finale's main tune is so catchy, but so frivolous,

Iow, so French. 

Kalkbrenner

Heinrich Heine (who else?) wrote of him that "he looks like a bonbon that has fallen into the mud". 

Pleasant entertainments.

That's exactly what they were intended to be. 

[Brian]

Wladyslaw Zelenski's concerto has a quiet opening, and once the orchestra builds up to the first big climax, the pianist enters. It's a confident, cheery E flat concerto, with more than a little taste of Saint-Saens. The second movement's variations contain rather a lot of cymbal crashes, and the cymbal player switches to triangle in some episodes of the final rondo. There's almost no slow material here, and almost no drama, too: just genial virtuosity in a much later romantic language than, say, Kalkbrenner's. Fans of Moszkowski's concerto should consider this one.

Aleksander Zarzycki wrote a two-movement concerto and a 10-minute Grande Polonaise. Although Zarzycki later had a long career leading Polish musical schools (he hired Paderewski to teach), these two works date from his young years as a virtuoso in Paris in the 1850s, 45+ years before the Zelenski concerto was written.

The concerto is missing a first movement, unusually. So we dive straight into a lyrical but not especially memorable andante, then a finale that also fits those adjectives. The Grande Polonaise is immediately more memorable, with the piano starting things off and the famous rhythm providing structure to the whole thing. The main theme isn't as heroic as some of Chopin's, but the piece is very good fun.



Theodore Dubois is most famous now as the arch-conservative of the French romantic era, the guy who frowned upon all the guys we know and love. This was more of a public face than his personal views: in private, he admired Debussy and Wagner, for example. But as the head of the conservatory, he banned his students from attending Pelleas and conspired to block the young Ravel's career.

The disc here spans his whole (very long) career. Concerto capriccioso starts with a cadenza, which sounds a little bit like a Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody. The entrance of the orchestra brings predictability and conservatism, removing a little bit of my sense that anything could happen. Instead we get an orchestral exposition of themes, then a piano repetition of them as in a classic allegro. (The main theme is a lot like that of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.) Eventually there's a predictable slow section and switch to major key. The orchestra is very much secondary to the piano and doesn't sound too convinced by their parts in the final few minutes.

Concerto No. 2 is in symphonic dimensions, with a little scherzo. The scherzo is my favorite part, in fact, as the small-scale orchestral accompaniment makes for another low-stakes, medium-energy piece. The piano launches the finale with a long cadenza. The slow movement is ambitiously marked "adagio con sentimento profondissimo." Profondissimo!!

The Qobuz review claims that the final work on the disc, a Suite for Piano and Strings, is much more progressive and modern, dating to Dubois' retirement years and reflecting his interest in the style of Faure et. al. To me it comes across much like the rest of the music on the album: uneventful and lacking in interesting features or colors. Sorry!



Theodor Döhler and Alexander Dreyschock were virtuosi whose concertante works are mainly designed to show off their piano playing skills. Heinrich Heine called Döhler either the "worst second-rate pianist or the best third-rate pianist," an impressive insult. His A major concerto has a rather simple Hummel-ish or Ries-like main theme, and a very short slow movement that leads directly into the finale, Beethoven-style. The finale's main tune might be the most appealing part of the piece. It's genuinely catchy, and sets off a charming rondo. (I think in the horn part I hear an almost-quote of Beethoven's Fourth Concerto.)

Dreyschock's Morceau de Concert is a 16-minute allegro in C minor. A secondary subject sounds just like the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody No. 5 (the elegiac). The overt Lisztianness makes the piece derivative, but also very fun, the most memorable of the three pieces on the album.

Finally, a "Salute to Vienna" in 10 minutes, with intro, march, and rondo. This is pure harmless fluff, a crowdpleaser for a long-ago concert, now somewhat dull.



This is one of the series' most unique and valuable installments, featuring music for pedal piano, an instrument originally devised so that organists could practice outside of churches. As reconstructed more recently, it's two Steinways stacked on top of each other, with a foot pedal system attached to the bottom one. The pianist climbs up onto a bench where (s)he can play the lower Steinway with foot pedals and the upper one with hands. Roberto Prosseda, the virtuoso who helped revive this instrument, says the technique is actually very different from organ technique, making it not very practical at all!

Gounod's pedal piano music is all light, charming, tuneful, and tremendously fun. There are pictorial movements depicting royal hunts and dances, a fantasia on the Russian national anthem, and even a Romanian dance, which just confirms that this is perfect Florestan music. Truly excellent and the opposite of "profondissimo." Prosseda gives it his all and the booklet includes his essay and a photo of the piano setup from the recording sessions.



Benjamin Godard is best known for one miniature from one opera, even though he wrote two piano concertos, two violin concertos, five symphonies, several operas - in fact, he blazed past Op. 150 in his personal catalog before dying at age 45 of tuberculosis. The three works here span his career, the First Concerto coming from a young firebrand, the Introduction and Allegro from a thirtysomething composer, the Second Concerto one of his last pieces. Both concertos are in four movements, with scherzos.

The First Concerto's first movement is a dramatic minor-key romp with lots of trombone and a piano that's perpetually in motion. The scherzo is light and dancey, in contrast, before a grave slow movement with a grim climax and some moments of near-silence. This is the only calm in a hyperactive piece.

The Second Concerto has a really odd structure, with several movements that blend into each other and several more that are in multipart form rather than a traditional allegro. The musical language isn't much different, and the scherzo is still a lovely little cream puff, but I found less memorable material to follow along through the work.

In the Introduction and Allegro, the two parts are the same size! The introduction is quite grandiose, with bass drum, cymbal, and poetic ending. Then the Allegro is rather silly, with a main theme I find amusing (especially since it's introduced with another cymbal crash).

For fans of Saint-Saens and the Litolff concertos symphoniques, a worthwhile find.



The booklet takes pleasure in recounting how Henrique Oswald and Alfredo Napoleão mirrored each other, one born and raised in Brazil and traveling to Europe to achieve his career, the other exactly the opposite. They were even born in the same years, and made their cross-Atlantic moves in the same years.

They also unfortunately did not use any Brazilian or Portuguese influences in these 1880s piano concertos, which instead mostly reflect the influences of Brahms, Liszt, and the usual suspects. Henrique Oswald does pay tribute to an Italian parent in the finale of his concerto, which initially sounds dramatic but reveals itself to be a lively tarantella. This has interrupted a pretty, nocturnal adagio with a little bit of Chopin's DNA, while the first movement keeps the pianist involved at all times. Not unforgettable, but not boring, either.

Napoleão's first movement is a 20-minute slow epic that begins quietly with tremolo strings. Chopin is the clear inspiration throughout this movement, as the piano and orchestra swoon through a series of nocturne-inspired romantic outpourings. The scherzo's trio section is slow as well, so this concerto is about 60% slow music. There's a moonlit stillness to the trio that is especially appealing, while the faster scherzo portions are clearly inspired by Saint-Saens and Litolff. The finale continues in that mood but its second theme has an "easy listening" pop music style to it that makes me cringe for some reason. There's also a motif that quotes Rossini (Barber of Seville).

All in all, above average for the series and with some unusual formal features, but not top tier.

[Florestan]

Heinrich Heine called Döhler either the "worst second-rate pianist or the best third-rate pianist," an impressive insult.

He penned an even more impressive insult for Dreyschock. Upon witnessing the latter's debut in Paris, he wrote:

He makes a hell of a racket. One does not seem to hear one Dreyschock but "three shocks." Since on the evening of his concert the wind was blowing south by west, perhaps you heard the tremendous sounds in Augsburg. At such a distance their effect must be agreeable. Here, however, in this Department of the Seine, one may easily burst an eardrum when the piano-pounder thumps away. Go hang yourself, Franz Liszt! You are but an ordinary wind god in comparison with this God of Thunder!

Théophile Gautier rightly called Heine "the most scoffing mind that ever lived". 

Gounod's pedal piano music is all light, charming, tuneful, and tremendously fun. There are pictorial movements depicting royal hunts and dances, a fantasia on the Russian national anthem, and even a Romanian dance, which just confirms that this is perfect Florestan music.

One of my favorite installments of the whole series, to be sure. 

[Florestan]

a Romanian dance

I've just revisited this. Dance, it certainly is, Romanian, not so much. 

[Brian]

I've just revisited this. Dance, it certainly is, Romanian, not so much. 

Never trust a romantic composer! 

[Brian]

IT'S HAPPENING!



This is the Romantic Piano Concerto Edition, spanning all the recordings through 2007 on 50 CDs. (Volumes 1-49, the 50th CD being the second half of the Saint-Saens volume.)

Booklet to include new texts by Stephen Hough and Piers Lane.

[Brian]

The booklet for the new box sets confirms that Hyperion has officially ended the series after 87 volumes. No more will be recorded. Both boxes include additional romantic concertos that were recorded outside the official series - for example, Hough's Brahms, Schumann, Dvorak, Grieg, and Liszt, Hewitt's Schumann, Demidenko's Scriabin and Chopin, and Ohlsson's Chopin works that are not concertos.

-

CONFESSION TIME

I had a draft saved on GMG featuring my detailed notes on Vols. 65-71. Then I saved the draft and a winter ice storm happened, so I stayed home, listened to other music, and .... forgot the draft. So the forum software deleted it.

So for these volumes, I will now write notes ONLY answering the question: what do I remember about the music two weeks later? Do I remember anything at all?

I am not consulting the booklets or notes...just what I remember now, afterwards.



Albeniz and Granados sound exciting but their concertante works are not overtly Spanish or nationalist. This is especially true of the Albeniz Rapsodia Espanola, here presented in an alternate version that has less percussion and less colorful orchestration. The Granados "concerto" is a reconstruction by the pianist. The first movement is long and wild and somewhat odd, but the next two are just orchestrations of pre-existing works. Not essential.



Pure fluff, including two fantasies/variations on operatic tunes. Those were fun and I think I remember the C minor concerto having just a little bit of drama to it.



I don't remember the short early Ballade or the Concerto No. 1, but No. 2 is an unusual two-movement slow-fast form written just after WWI. The first movement is the tragedy of war - not exactly cutting-edge expressionism, but a standard romantic lament - and then the second movement is an exuberant recovery, like everyone is coming back to life again.



Schulz-Evler is most famous for his solo transcription of "On the Beautiful Blue Danube." The short piece here is a Russian Rhapsody and I remember that it (a) doesn't use the super famous Russian melodies that appear in the Razumovsky quartets, Tchaikovsky, Glinka, etc., and (b) isn't nearly as fun as the Strauss transcription.

The Moszkowski concerto is an absolutely gigantic sin of youth. But like all Moszkowski, it is bursting with catchy tunes, energy, and a sense of fun. You just have to be ready for 54 whole minutes of those catchy tunes. I remember the booklet note pointed out that in the finale, there is a new thematic cell introduced at the 16 minute mark! The booklet also had some funny quotes of Moszkowski insulting and denigrating the piece.



I remember these two Aussie concertos were SUPER boring. Bland, generic, and mostly slow.



By contrast, I remember these pieces being super dramatic or melodramatic. The Howell one-movement concerto in D minor is a real rollercoaster ride, nonstop action. I remember this being the best performance of Amy Beach's concerto I've heard, also, because it's treated here like a virtuoso vehicle rather than bloated poetry. (This performance is 2 minutes faster than the competition on Naxos.) A real winner of a disc.



After the well-crafted hyperdrama of the previous volume, this was well-crafted no drama. Pleasant ear fluff, but with more compositional skill than Herz for example.

[Brian]

Went through my notes for Vols. 1-43, since they are in the first big box, and asked myself whether I'd like to own physical copies.

These are my personal subjective ratings, and as such very different from, say, Florestan's. Famous works by Mendelssohn, Saint-Saens, and Weber are rated by the CD's place in those works' discography, not by the quality of the music.

# = volume number

Essential: 1, 10, 11, 15, 18, 38, 39, 42
Very good listening: 2, 8, 12, 13, 14, 19, 26, 37, 43
Nice to have: 4, 16, 17, 20, 28, 30, 34
Meh: 5, 6, 7, 9, 21, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 40
I'd be annoyed these were taking up space on my shelf: 3, 23, 41
Did not listen as I am not qualified to judge the performance: 22

So 8 essential volumes, 9 very good volumes, 7 more I liked enough to listen occasionally, 15 I thought "meh", and 3 I actively disliked. "Meh" is by far the most common grade, showing that a lot of this repertoire was forgotten for good reason. However, the series has a hit rate of about 55-60%.

An additional influence on my potential purchasing decision is that I already own 7 physical discs included in the 50 CD box, and only really desire to own another 5 or so. (In some cases I have competing recordings by pianists like Earl Wild.) And it looks like the original booklet notes will not be included.

[JBS]

What's on Volume 22?

Never mind. Found it. Busoni.
And Amazon tells me I bought it ten years ago.

[maticevska]

It's honestly nice to know that it's finished because its ongoing nature was what was making it seem too daunting to start collecting.

[Brian]

Cipriani Potter, who looks a little like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights in this cover portrait, was a Londoner whose real first name was Philip. He wrote his piano concertos in the 1830s, shortly after completing his Tenth Symphony (!), and he was critiqued at the time for being too slavishly loyal to Beethoven's example. However, if these concertos are indebted to Beethoven, it would be to the younger man, not the heroic radical.

No. 2 comes off more like Chopin, with the tender lyrical piano contrasted against the minor key orchestra. One odd feature: the piano's entrance is very brief, and then the orchestra plays for a while again before the pianist "really" joins the action. No. 4 is in sunny E major, and it's pleasant enough. So is the set of variations on a Rossini aria.

CPO appears to be recording a Potter edition. I'm not sure this music can withstand multiple interpretations.



Roger Sacheverell Coke was an eccentric English aristocrat with a hereditary estate, a schizophrenia diagnosis, and an interest in Rachmaninov-like romantic concertos. Nos. 3 and 4 are half-hour works that clearly take inspiration from the Russian, and No. 5 exists in only a single movement, since Coke presumably destroyed the other two. All of his music sounds like that of an eager, talented amateur.

One more hiccup: this music was written from 1938-1950, well after Rachmaninov's heyday. After Coke's father died in World War I, he studied piano and composition, then returned to the family estate, spending most of his career playing and composing in a studio on the property. Public reaction to his antiquated music was mixed, so in later years he stayed in Derbyshire, leading his own orchestra.

No. 3 is very much Diet Rachmaninov, in exactly the same language as that composer but without the big tunes or high drama. The orchestration can be strange at times: in the central variations movement, there's a really weird section where the trumpets and violas play in unison.

No. 4 is a little amateurish as well, but more adventurous and modernist, especially in the finale, when the brass intrudes with all sorts of odd ideas. The second half of the finale is the most harmonically modern music so far, very removed from what Rachmaninov would have ever done. The piano chugs along more or less continuously through the piece. Odd, eccentric, and self-indulgent music.

The fragmentary No. 5 suggests a continued stylistic evolution. It's real "out there," and some commenters online have suggested Sibelius as a point of comparison. I'd say more like Bax or Rubbra, but it's very strange, personal music.

The playing is good, given the circumstances, although the cymbal player consistently opts for a lame swish rather than a crash.



The third CD in a row of English music! We start with Op. 1, clearly in the sound world of Mendelssohn, Schumann, Farrenc, etc. It's in D minor, and it's very competently done. The finale is a scherzo-finale hybrid that resolutely remains in minor key until the end. No. 2, in E flat, is rather longer and perhaps demands a little more poetry from the pianist to go with his showing-off. The highlight is an uncommonly beautiful slow movement built on a theme that sounds almost like a chorale.

Biggest and beefiest of all is No. 3 in C minor, but I have to say I didn't like it. Too puffed up, stiff, and formal.



I'm not sure why Hyperion recorded this. Naxos had already completed a Ries concerto cycle, and Hyperion clearly gave up after the first volume, not bothering to record the rest. It is certainly true that Concerto No. 8, with its Rhine subtitle, is one of the prettiest and most endearing Beethoven-era-but-not-Beethoven concertos, right up there with Hummel's. It sounds very strongly like a Beethoven imitation - much more so than Potter - and has catchy tunes. But I don't know if I could list a ton of differences between Piers Lane's interpretation and the Naxos version.

The Introduction and Polonaise mostly saves the piano for the polonaise portion, which is anticipated with a rather grand and mighty intro, but doesn't consistently deliver the goods. It's certainly no Chopin heroic polonaise. There's a charming clarinet duet around 5:40 that makes me think of Bavarian biergartens.

Concerto No. 9 is in G minor, and the minor key again will...make you think of Beethoven. It is a very well-crafted piece, and Ries clearly learned from his idol. It doesn't have the revolutionary spark, maybe, but any copy of Beethoven will have some good stuff in it. The slow movement is especially lovely.

It took 75 volumes, but I'm finally getting exhausted of all these romantic piano concertos. Only 12 discs to go...   



These two concertos each have famous models. Rheinberger (who later taught Furtwangler) based his work's design on Beethoven's Fifth Concerto, and Scholz emulates the intimate lyricism of Brahms' Second.

The Rheinberger piece's resemblance to Beethoven is most clear at the beginning, when the pianist enters with a flourish. There's also a lovely chamber-like moment near the end of the movement, where the pianist mingles with solo string layers, just before the short, beautiful adagio. There's no link through to the finale, but the finale does have an introductory piano cadenza before the "real" business. It's all very pleasant, well-crafted, and occasionally memorable (like that bit near the end of the first movement). But the final moments of the concerto reach a certain blissed-out easiness that verges on sentimental and sweet.

There's very little biographical info about Scholz except that he was a good friend of his contemporary Brahms and did much to promote Brahms' work. The booklet notes compare this concerto Brahms, which is true at times, but the small-scaled orchestra, shy brass and timpani, and almost-constant piano activity also harken back to the earlier days of Chopin or Hummel. The second half of the finale has a bit more exuberance and good cheer, while still being Brahmsian.

As a bonus, we get a 12-minute Capriccio by Scholz, starting with a piano introduction. Mendelssohn is the template here.

A pleasant, unchallenging, unmemorable disc.



Bronsart's F sharp minor concerto brings the heat, with plenty of Sturm und Drang to banish the sleepy major-key cheer of the previous two volumes. I have previously heard it in Paul Wee's recording (coupled to Henselt), and wasn't much of a fan then. This recording, just a tiny bit slower and less virtuosic in every movement, improved my view slightly. Or maybe just hearing the piece a second time made me like it more. Or maybe I have Stockholm Syndrome from the previous, much more boring volumes    The finale is rather silly.

Anton Urspruch's E flat concerto is a monster with a 24-minute first movement, short andante, and 13-minute finale. But unlike, say, Brahms' First Concerto, it's in a sunny, relaxed, glowing mood, almost pastoral, like a much bigger, more romantic, less rhythmic extension of Schubert or Ries. The musical material unfolds gradually but not boringly - it's a bit of a surprise when the piano enters and you realize it's already been 3:25.

The slow movement's melancholy main theme is very very much like that of Bach's E major violin concerto. After that, I started working and my attention was distracted. The concerto made that easy, certainly. But it always sounded quite nice.

An enjoyable volume, well above the recent average.



In the first few years that concert programmers realized they should be including music by women, Clara Schumann's piano concerto became a "token." This was, I believe, because Clara Schumann's name is reasonably familiar to classical audiences, and it was much easier to take her sole orchestral work as a token than it would have been to teach listeners about composers such as Farrenc, Pejacevic, Beach, Bacewicz, Barraine, G. Williams, etc. - let alone program any actually living composers!

This is unfortunate because the C. Schumann piano concerto is an immature work, begun when she was 14 and completed, with help from Robert, just a couple years later. Through absolutely no fault of the composer's own, this bit of juvenilia is now overrated and overperformed. I'm seeing 16 different recordings on Presto, compared to 3 each for the Bacewicz and Beach piano concertos, and only one rival version of the Dorothy Howell concerto that Hyperion featured on Vol. 70.

Howard Shelley's performance is about as good as it gets, snappy in the fast portions, lightly virtuosic, and well played by the bassoon, who has a nice solo in the finale. The concerto's best feature is its slow movement, an unusual trio for piano, cello, and timpani.

Ferdinand Hiller's 20-minute Konzertstuck is a cheerful descendant of Weber and Mendelssohn, featuring a tarantella finale. I do love a good romantic tarantella. Herz' Rondo de Concert is a soft-edged, gentle confection with small string orchestra. Finally, Kalkbrenner's Le rêve has a few storm clouds in it, even some stern trombones; the piano wanders through a landscape. I think this might be Kalkbrenner's most memorable and entertaining piece in the series.

The mixed repertoire adds value and this disc is a useful niche-filler, especially if you don't have one of the other 15 Clara concerto recordings.



I believe David Hurwitz said some mean things about the 43-minute Pfitzner piano concerto, but I won't check or listen. I'll just jump in.

It starts with a grandiose, ebullient bang, with some triumphant music. But the first movement mostly defies my expectation: it's a lot of calm, quiet, introspective music, almost entirely a slow movement except for a brief recapitulation of the opening theme at about 12'. A breathless Mendelssohnian perpetuum mobile scherzo follows, featuring piano and Alpine cuckoo-clock-sounding clarinets.

The slow movement is really gorgeous, starting out with the solo violinist against a muted violin backdrop; the piano enters very late and the overall feeling is very, very much like the Brahms concertos. The brass chorale at the end feels a little bit vulgar and pompous in context, like he didn't know how good his material was. But it leads directly into the finale, which - again like the corresponding Brahms - is lighter, cheerier, airy and fresh. There are hints of something darker under the surface, including muted horns and an unexpected fugal cadenza, but they are only hints.

Pfitzner wrote this piece in the 1920s and soon found himself in the pitiful position of trying to endear himself to the Nazis. He appeared to be ideologically aligned with them and his music was frequently performed in Nazi Germany; Goebbels loved this concerto. But Hitler suspected he was secretly Jewish and he never got to be as big of a Nazi as he wanted. Yuck.

Walter Braunfels, by contrast, was forced into retirement by the Nazis. Tag- und Nachtstucke was written during that enforced retirement and was only premiered in 2017, by Michael Korstick. It's really an orchestral work with piano obbligato. The piano part is big enough to be a concerto but the form is five pictorial movements, starting with spooky, mysterious, not-quite-Mahlerian night music. Most Mahlerian is the third movement, a macabre and thoroughly entertaining Geschwindmarsch. The finale is a delightful romp that, in its central development, threatens to break out into combat instead. I guess there's a surprisingly fine line between a party and a fight. 

A very entertaining piece. I have been underrating Braunfels for years; maybe this is my sign to give him another try. Right now I am not very interested in the whole R. Straussian late romantic "thing," but Braunfels seems to have his own very different voice, a positive Mahler influence, and an ear for a good tune. The Pfitzner was just OK, but this Braunfels is my favorite piece in this whole long post, and my favorite work in the series since the Gounod pedal piano edition.

Only 8 more volumes to go!

[Cato]

CPO appears to be recording a Potter edition. I'm not sure this music can withstand multiple interpretations.



Roger Sacheverell Coke was an eccentric English aristocrat with a hereditary estate, ... All of his music sounds like that of an eager, talented amateur.

Odd, eccentric, and self-indulgent music.

The fragmentary No. 5 suggests a continued stylistic evolution. It's real "out there," and some commenters online have suggested Sibelius as a point of comparison. I'd say more like Bax or Rubbra, but it's very strange, personal music.

The playing is good, given the circumstances, although the cymbal player consistently opts for a lame swish rather than a crash.




Biggest and beefiest of all is No. 3 in C minor, but I have to say I didn't like it. Too puffed up, stiff, and formal.



I'm not sure why Hyperion recorded this.







A pleasant, unchallenging, unmemorable disc.




In the first few years that concert programmers realized they should be including music by women, Clara Schumann's piano concerto became a "token." This was, I believe, because Clara Schumann's name is reasonably familiar to classical audiences, and it was much easier to take her sole orchestral work as a token than it would have been to teach listeners about composers such as Farrenc, Pejacevic, Beach, Bacewicz, Barraine, G. Williams, etc. - let alone program any actually living composers!

First, many, many thanks for the reviews of so many CD's!

I highlighted the above to lament the money being spent on recording the weak works above, while - and this an old lament from me - so many other composers of much higher interest languish in near or complete CD-or-download-mp3/mp4 silence!

Our own Karl Henning is the most obvious choice for a composer whose works should be given a wider audience.

I also think about Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov, Alexander Nemtin, Serge Protopopov, Theodore Berger, and members can probably add dozens more!

Anyway...possibly everyone knows this work, but if not, here it is:

Moszkowski: Piano Concerto #1

I first became acquainted with Moszkowski's music through Michael Ponti's wonderful recording of the Second Piano Concerto in the early 1970's.

[dhibbard]

Wish they would record Hannikainen: Piano Concerto

[pjme]

is this the last cd in this series?

[Brian]

is this the last cd in this series?

The last is Volume 87, completing the Carl Reinecke concerto cycle.