Can this really be the Gramophone?

[Mark Thomas]

The new issue of Gramophone has two pages by Jeremy Nicholas singing the praises of unsung romantic piano concertos - those by Sgambati, Henselt, Litolff and another seven thoroughly deserving candidates for repertoire status vie for the No.1 spot which Moszkowski claims. Personally I was delighted to see Raff come in in third place behind Scharwenka's First. OK, so it's shallow stuff, but I was amazed to find it in Gramophone at all!

[Alan Howe]

I was flabbergasted. As Frankie Howerd used to say, never has my flabber been so gasted! Bet they'll never do it for any other category...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Gosh, Mark, on a cold and damp night such as this I presumed that, swathed in greatcoat and with the mittens hindering the page turning of a score, you would be inhabiting some gloomy and musty church busy at choir practice. Not a bit of it - you're obviously at home, before the fire, and reading The Gramophone.

Bad jokes aside, yes, the eyes popped out at two pages devoted to "forgotten Romantic piano concertos of the 19th century". And surely not a bad selection of ten examples - though hardly "The specialist's guide..."

Yes, shallow comments offered....but something is surely better than nothing and total neglect?

And actually, in spite of some features sufficient to induce a groan, the monthly comic isn't wholly deplorable this current issue? Some of the reviews by the likes of, e.g. Andrew Achenbach, Guy Rickards, David Fanning, Edward Seckerson, Arnold Whittall, Jeremy Dibble (the article on Butterworth), together with Jeremy Nicholas, display some insight, authority and intelligence. The problem of course is that all contributors have the heavy hand of an editor standing over them and are constrained to a very limited word count that precludes any extended discussion.

[JimL]

Since I can't see this with my own eyes, pray, which Litolff?  3 or 4?

[Mark Thomas]

The Fourth. The Scherzo gets an honourable mention.

[C R Lim]

Two cheers for the article!

I'll add another one if any of the stuff actually gets reviewed - one of my main gripes with the magazine as it stands currently is that unusual repertoire seldom makes it into the main section.

[Gareth Vaughan]

The Fourth. The Scherzo gets an honourable mention.

Well, knock me down with a feather! How totally underwhelming! The scherzo of Litolff's 4th is scarcely unsung. It will take a lot more than this pallid article to get me to renew my subscription.