Monday mornings are attended by a welcome e-mail from Classics Today and today’s came hard upon a Paul Wee recording review I’d read the previous evening in International Piano. The piece is by a composer I had previously listened to in a Marc-André Hamelin recording in the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto series, a remarkable pairing of Adolf von Henselt’s F minor, Op. 16, Piano Concerto with Charles-Valentin Alkan’s Concerto da camera in C sharp minor and in A minor.
This was a remarkable 1993 recording of two clearly difficult, virtuosic works. Of the Henselt F minor and etudes, Anton Rubinstein, a brilliant pianist of his day, termed practicing this piece a waste of time, based as it was on an abnormal formation of the hand (for playing twelfths and > 1 octave arpeggios).
There have been few recordings of the Henselt F minor concerto, but Paul Wee now brings us another that is yet again a demonstration of his remarkable keyboard prowess. The orchestration by Michael Collins/Swedish Chamber Orchestra is also a joy to listen to. The pairing in this case is with Hans Bronsart Von Schellendorff’s Piano Concerto in F sharp minor, which Jed Distler, in his review, describes as a piece that might have resulted if Liszt and Brahms had collaborated on a large scale work for piano and orchestra.
Mr. Henselt’s compositions are few in number, but great in influence. His two douze études (caractéristiques, Op. 2 and de salon, Op. 5) and the F minor Piano concerto were carefully attended (and alluded) to by many of the great pianists (including Busoni, Egon Petri and Rachmaninov).
Monday just got so much brighter for this listener.
Hi @bill_perkins, interesting that you are highlighting this concert. Coincidently, I was listening to that album las night and I was shocked that I didn’t know of this concert before. It is magnificent. It is surprising that it is not popular. Perhaps it is too challenging for many pianists. You can really hear Rachmaninov influences in it.
I’m also delighted to have been given opportunity to discover this amazing piano cto. Hamelin’s Henselt Variations performance was also a particularly poignant listen. An astonishing composition and performance!
Alexei Isaev. I was having my doubts at the start of Act III, but he just about pulled it off. Not great but not bad. Otherwise it was superb. Kaufman rolled back the years and sung with real power.
It was Pappano’s final performance after 22 years as musical director of the Royal Opera, he is very popular, he got a big send-off with confetti, speeches, everyone on stage. A lot of fun.
this is wonderful as well, and a reminder of how the major labels used to compete for stars, and release recordings of the same work, at almost the same time.
Corelli is stellar, and Stella is wonderful as well. Mario Sereni is a very good singer, but he’s not Bastianini, and that tips the scales for me.
@bill_perkins I wonder if Hyperion’s Romantic Piano and Romantic Violin cycles will be considered very historic at some point? I think we are extremely fortunate to be hearing all these albums.
Very difficult question as I myself do not have a clear understanding how the ideal interpretation should sound like.
Rather on the light yet playful and energetic chamber orchestra approach, I like listening to Zarachias´ reading with the orchestra de chambre de Lausanne.
I love the Mehta/Israel Mahler 4, but I think that the Telarc recording of Holst/Handel/Bach with Fennell and the Cleveland Symphonic Winds came out a bit before the Mahler in the history of digital recording. Fred was my mentor and friend, and I was present at those sessions.
@woodford I listened to the Statskapelle Berlin / Barenboim (Teldec) cycle and liked it better than anything else I heard.
I have trouble not blindly liking everything Dohnányi did with the Cleveland Orchestra so I’m saving that for later.
Then I listened to the Dresden / Sawallisch (EMI Warner) and listened to it again the next day. I think they cycle has more going for it than the others. Barenboim’s tempos were a touch dull in some placed whereas Sawallisch keeps thing going. Plus, the Dresden recording offered my ears some string textures I didn’t hear in the others.
