Henri Herz 1803-1888

[giles.enders]

Although I was not enamoured by the Herz piano concertos, the music not the performance, I was looking forward to number 6 which has a choral hymn in it.  Has Hyperion decided not to record this?  They have also not recorded number 2.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Hyperion has no plans to record Herz's PC No. 6 - Mike Spring says his impression from the 2-piano score (which includes the vocal parts) is that it is, especially the choral finale, extremely banal. But a major obstacle would seem to be the absence of a full score or set of orchestral parts. Herz, however, wrote some entertaining sets of variations for piano & orchestra and Mike is considering coupling these with PC No. 2 at some point in the future.

[giles.enders]

As a bit of a completest, I am sorry about number 6.  I long for the day when Hyperion, or another company, gather all the unrecorded pieces for piano and orchestra by composers they have already recorded in their series and issue a CD or two.  They did it with the Liszt series, which I suspect like James Joyce's Ulysses no one has ever finished.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I'll second that, Giles. And I'd really love to hear the Herz No. 6 - as also the PC (apparently lost) by Daniel Steibelt which had a choral finale - probably awful, but one's interest is piqued.

[giles.enders]

Recently I suggested to a pianist who had recorded the John Field piano concertos that he might look at the Steibelt survivors, I think there are 5 out of the 8, and got a rather dusty answer!

[Gareth Vaughan]

I have looked at the "Orage" concerto by Steibelt, and I have to say it really isn't much good. There's a lot of flashy passage work that doesn't really say anything or go anywhere, harmonically or melodically. I haven't seen any of the others.

[Jonathan]

I'm still hoping the Hyperion disc of his solo piano music might end up on Helios at some point.  I confess I've not heard any works by him except Earl Wild's recording of the variations on "Non piu mesta" from Rossini's La Cenerentola.

[eschiss1]

Philip Sear plays two works by him on his Youtube channel (go to PSearPianist and enter Herz in the search box at the top right. It's something... and he's rather good, and plays a lot of off-the-beaten-track piano music. As to Steibelt, I've skimmed a bit of the chamber music only (but only very very briefly) myself since BSB has some.