Of Heinrich "Henri" Herz, English musicologist George Grove once remarked: "Herz found out what the public liked and what would pay, and this he gave to them." In this, the second volume devoted the Herz's piano concertos in Hyperion's apparently endless The Romantic Piano Concerto series, English virtuoso Howard Shelley turns in performances of ...
A 2004 Chandos release, this recording of Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Concerto in C major, Op. 34, and two concertante works is a charming exploration of early nineteenth century music at the crossroads of Classicism and Romanticism. Dating from 1809, Hummel's Concerto was contemporary with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, ...
The May 1915 premiere of Cyril Scott's Piano Concerto No. 1, given by Thomas Beecham at Queen's Hall with the composer at the piano, represented the peak of Scott's career in "serious" music and, in the short term, the work proved influential among young composers in England. Little did the 35-year-old composer realize that he was entering into a ...
German-born Frédéric Kalkbrenner was perhaps the top pianist in Paris when Chopin came on the scene. The exemplary booklet notes by Jeremy Nicholas here, which are full of information useful to anyone interested in the period, include various entertaining put-downs of Kalkbrenner and his music -- poet Heinrich Heine likened the composer's ...
Early Rachmaninov is just fine, but the Symphony No. 1 is preferable over he Second, the Morceaux de salon over the Preludes, and the String Quartet No. 2 over the Piano Concerto No. 2. But early Rachmaninov means his work from about 1893 through 1897, roughly the works from his Piano Concerto No. 1 and earliest songs through the disastrous ...
Let's say you really like Beethoven and Schubert and Weber and the whole late-Enlightenment-early-Romantic German style period but you haven't heard anything by Johann Nepomunk Hummel and you'd like to know where to start. By all means, start here. Not only does the disc have Hummel's ?greatest hit' -- his stormy A minor Piano Concerto -- and ...
In exploring the music of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, listeners may feel inclined to be open-minded; after all, this composer was once considered the equal of Beethoven, if not his superior, so there must be some value in his works. Notwithstanding the fine performances of violinist and violist James Ehnes, pianist and conductor Howard Shelley, and the ...
Consisting of William Sterndale Bennett's Fourth Piano Concerto plus his Caprice in E major with a Piano Concerto by Bennett's student Francis Edward Bache, the repertoire here might not at first seem the sort to elicit huzzahs. Firmly in the Mendelssohnian camp of earnest but not especially adventurous early Romanticism, these works are well ...
Even though Louis Spohr lived well into the Romantic era, and was a contemporary of such cutting-edge figures as Beethoven, Berlioz, Paganini, Liszt, and Wagner, his music stayed remarkably Classical in form and substance, and sounded conservative in style, even late in his career. It shouldn't be surprising to find that his Symphony No. 1 in E ...
The packaging of this British budget reissue disc makes no mention of the original recording date, something that's always desirable with any reissue. Perhaps the producers thought that the early digital-era date of 1986 would scare buyers away, but they needn't have been ashamed of it -- the Abbey Road studios sound is top notch, and the ...
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