August Piano

The concept of The Romantic Piano Concerto series was born at a lunch meeting between Hyperion and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra sometime in 1990. A few months later tentative plans had been made for three recordings, and the first volume, of concertos by Moszkowski and Paderewski, was recorded in June 1991. In our wildest dreams, none of us involved then could ever have imagined that the series would still be going strong twenty years later, and with fifty volumes to its credit.

The concept of The Romantic Piano Concerto series was born at a lunch meeting between Hyperion and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra sometime in 1990. A few months later tentative plans had been made for three recordings, and the first volume, of concertos by Moszkowski and Paderewski, was recorded in June 1991. In our wildest dreams, none of us involved then could ever have imagined that the series would still be going strong twenty years later, and with fifty volumes to its credit.

August Winding was the son of a musical clergyman whose great interest was in collecting folk-songs. He was his son's first music teacher. Later, he studied in Hamburg, Vienna and Paris where he became acquainted with Chopin and Kalkbrenner. The composer Carl Reinecke, who was court composer in Copenhagen in 1846-48, also taught Winding. He was very close to Niels W. Gade and also studied with him. He established himself as a formidable pianist especially in the works of Mozart and Beethoven. He taught at the Conservatory in Copenhagen and through his marriage to Clara, the daughter of J.P.E. Hartmann, he became a member of this musical family. In fact, the other composer on this CD, Emil Hartmann was his brother-in-law.

The concept of The Romantic Piano Concerto series was born at a lunch meeting between Hyperion and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra sometime in 1990. A few months later tentative plans had been made for three recordings, and the first volume, of concertos by Moszkowski and Paderewski, was recorded in June 1991. In our wildest dreams, none of us involved then could ever have imagined that the series would still be going strong twenty years later, and with fifty volumes to its credit.

The concept of The Romantic Piano Concerto series was born at a lunch meeting between Hyperion and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra sometime in 1990. A few months later tentative plans had been made for three recordings, and the first volume, of concertos by Moszkowski and Paderewski, was recorded in June 1991. In our wildest dreams, none of us involved then could ever have imagined that the series would still be going strong twenty years later, and with fifty volumes to its credit.

Hans August Alexander Bronsart von Schellendorf (generally known as Hans von Bronsart), once a force to be reckoned with in the musical life of his native Germany, is now hardly a footnote in most reference books. Record collectors of a certain vintage will have bought Michael Ponti playing the same F sharp minor concerto presented here, a recording made back in 1973 for the Vox Candide label with the Westphalian Symphony Orchestra under Richard Kapp, one of very few recordings of any of Bronsart’s work. Otherwise, it is probably only keen Lisztians who will know that having revised his piano concerto No 2 in 1856, Liszt chose Bronsart to give the premiere (Weimar, 7 January 1857) with himself as conductor. When the final version was published in 1863, Bronsart was the dedicatee. These were significant gestures. Immediately, one is intrigued. Who was this Bronsart of whom Liszt thought so highly?

To the extent that he is remembered at all, the Dresden-born August Alexander Klengel (1783–1852) retains a toe-hold in music history thanks to a monumental set of 48 canon and fugues. But he was an important early-Romantic composer and celebrated piano virtuoso. August Alexander Klengel enjoyed a reputation that stretched from St Petersburg to London; indeed, he lived in both cities for a while, although later returning to his native Dresden. This first recording of his piano and chamber music reveals a personality with a strong lyrical impulse, somewhere between Field, almost certainly an acquaintance during Klengel's five years in the Russian capital, and Mendelssohn and Chopin, who were personal friends. The principle task of the Trio Klengel founded in 2016 is to perform rare and forgotten chamber music. It takes its name from a trio founded a century ago by three daughters of the cellist Julius Klengel (Julius Röntgen's father-in-law), who was distantly related to August Alexander Klengel. This Trio Klengel consists of Keiko Yamaguchi (violin), Stefania Verità (cello) and Anna Petrova-Forster (piano).

Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series reaches its 70th album with this program of three concertos by women. The ongoing success of the series suggests that audiences are ready and waiting for wider repertoire, and pianist Danny Driver and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Rebecca Miller deliver a real find here. The Piano Concerto in C sharp minor, Op. 45, of American composer Amy Beach has been performed and recorded, but it's been in search of a recording that captures the autobiographical quality of the work, well sketched out in the booklet notes by Nigel Simeone. Essentially, Beach faced creative repression from her religious mother and to a lesser extent from her husband, who allowed her to compose, but only rarely to perform. These experiences, it may be said, poured out in this towering Brahmsian, four-movement piano concerto, which sets up an unusual quality of struggle between soloists and orchestra. It's this dynamic that's so well captured by Driver and Miller (who happen to be married to each other). Sample the opening movement, which has lacked this quality in earlier performances.