Grieg Scottish

This is a collection of absolute gems. The one-movement Concerto by Fauré is the only movement to have survived from an original three-movement violin concerto, and Saint-Saëns’s Morceau de concert was originally intended as the first movement of his third violin concerto. Lalo’s Fantaisie norvégienne, with its utterly gorgeous slow movement, was to become the inspiration behind Bruch’s Scottish Fantaisie, and Guitare is an early encore piece for violin and piano (later orchestrated by Gabriel Pierné) that Lalo (himself a violinist) wrote for his own use. Guiraud, who taught composition to both Debussy and Dukas, wrote the haunting Caprice for Sarasate, and the Poème by Canteloube shows much of the charm he is now so famed for through his Chants d’Auvergne.

Of the myriad piano concertos composed in the second half of the nineteenth century all but a handful are forgotten. The survivors are played with a regularity that borders on the monotonous—the ubiquitous Tchaikovsky No 1, the Grieg, Saint-Saëns’s Second (in G minor), the two by Brahms and, really, that is just about all there is on offer. Pianists, promoters and record companies play it safe and opt for the familiar. Even a masterpiece can become an unwelcome guest, especially when subjected to an unremarkable outing by yet another indifferent player, as happens so frequently today.

The music of the Edinburgh composer William Beaton Moonie (1883–1961) is as good as unknown. This firstever album devoted to his piano music reveals a figure downstream from Schumann, Brahms and Grieg, writing in a conservative Romantic idiom coloured by echoes of the folk-music of his native Scotland. Many of these pieces, indeed, are concerned to evoke images of the Scottish countryside or suggest aspects of Scottish history.

Under one cover collection compilers gathered the greatest composers of all the classics I have never seen such a comprehensive, coherent, astonishing album of classical music like this. I think that the most passionate plays the greatest composers in the history enrich your rainy night for more than 3.5 hours without faltering on any note.

Stojowski was born and brought up in Poland though he later lived in Paris and finally became an American citizen. He was both virtuoso pianist and serious composer (he wrote a symphony and violin concerto as well as music for his own instrument) and his initial career was full of promise. Unfortunately for his later reputation his style was that of a previous generation and in the 20th century his music was viewed as increasingly dated. One hundred years later this hardly matters and on this CD we find works steeped in the language of Tchaikovsky and Grieg, perhaps with a hint of Saint-Saëns and the almost sentimental lyricism of Paderewski (ten years Stojowski's senior, Paderewski was both teacher and friend to the younger composer, the second concerto was dedicated to, and played by him).

A two-disc collection of renowned classical music for that inevitable moment.

Anton Stepanovich Arensky and Sergei Eduardovich Bortkiewicz are hardly household names. Arensky’s delicious Piano Trio in D minor continues to keep its place on the fringes of the chamber repertoire, and the Waltz movement from his Suite for two pianos receives an occasional outing; otherwise nothing. Who has even heard of Bortkiewicz other than aficionados of the piano’s dustier repertoire?

This disc contains works by Grainger in versions for large choral forces, performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra under its new Chief Conductor, Sir Andrew Davis, and featuring the Sydney Chamber Choir and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Chorus. The recording continues on from our nineteen-disc Grainger Edition box and brings our long-running Grainger survey to an end.