Piers Lane, Jerzy Maksymiuk - The Romantic Piano Concerto Vol.1: Moritz Moszkowski & Ignacy Paderewski: Piano Concertos (1991)

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Piers Lane, Jerzy Maksymiuk - The Romantic Piano Concerto Vol.1: Moritz Moszkowski & Ignacy Paderewski: Piano Concertos (1991)

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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.
How refreshing, then, to have the dust brushed off two forgotten specimens of late nineteenth-century piano concertos and rendered clean and polished for inspection again. Refreshing and rewarding, for both are exactly the sort of pieces that make one wonder why we are forced to live off such a limited concerto diet. How is it that such appealing, well-crafted, imaginative works with their high spirits and luscious tunes could have vanished from the repertoire? Why is it that neither is played as frequently as, say, the Grieg Concerto? Or instead of it? What is it about them that has failed to put them in the classical pop charts? Listening to them afresh it is a teasing question to answer; the longer one ponders the matter the fewer become the justifiable, verifiable reasons why today’s audiences so rarely have the opportunity to enjoy works such as these two delightful crowd-pleasers. It is time for those who promote and play piano music to be more adventurous and imaginative in their programming before this particular corner of the repertoire dies a death from staleness and stultification.

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Piers Lane, Jerzy Maksymiuk - The Romantic Piano Concerto Vol.1: Moritz Moszkowski & Ignacy Paderewski: Piano Concertos (1991)

Close