More Herz from Hyperion

[Alan Howe]

From Hyperion's website:

Fans of more frivolous piano fare will welcome our 66th Romantic Piano Concerto series release. Howard Shelley and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra have recorded Henri Herz Piano Concerto No 2 & other works, their third and final visit to the bejewelled territory of this Austro-Parisian sensation.
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/ym.asp?ym=2015_08

[TerraEpon]

Well that's some damning with faint praise there isn't it...

[Mark Thomas]

Well, "frivolous" or no, it'll be a very welcome addition to my collection.

[Alan Howe]

Well, Herz is frivolous. That's the whole point. Anyway, if returning to the 'bejewelled territory of this Austro-Parisian sensation' is damning with faint praise, I'm a banana...

[Mark Thomas]

I agree with what you say, Alan, but then we both know Herz's music and can put the word "frivolous", in particular, in context. To someone who doesn't know the pleasures of his music, I do think that it's an unhelpful word.

[FBerwald]

But does it contain the 6th Concerto with chorus?

[Gareth Vaughan]

Almost certainly not, for a number of reasons. The orchestral material appears to be missing. All that exists is a score for two pianos with the chorus part, so it would have to be reconstructed (see "Not what it says on the tin" on other board). Also, I know Mike Spring considered the music banal, and he told me he did not want to record the 6th, but he did want to issue a disk with some of the other pieces Herz wrote for piano and orchestra with the 2nd PC. There are, to my knowledge, two sets of Variations for piano and orchestra and a Grande Polonaise. Some or all of these will be the likely couplings, I'm sure.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Needless to say, I personally am delighted at the prospect of more Herz. I love his frivolity.

[thalbergmad]

It is happy music. I like it and so does my Venus Fly Trap.

Thal

[Alan Howe]

Is that cockney rhyming slang, perchance? 

[giles.enders]

Oh dear! I have most of the Hyperion piano concerto series and have to say the Herz were a real low point musically speaking.  They were well played, in fact considerably better played than some in the series.

[Gareth Vaughan]

He simply makes me smile. It is superficial music with no pretensions. Herz set out to please and, for this listener at least, he does just that.

[JimL]

A must have for me, since it seems that's all the Herz we're likely to get.  Bummer that nobody seems to have been able to find the full score of the 6th, though.

[Gareth Vaughan]

I doubt there was a full score, Jim. All the other concertos seem to exist as piano scores for the pianist (with orchestral tuttis as cues) + sets of orchestral parts - at least, that's my understanding from Hyperion. I expect Herz conducted them himself from the keyboard. The same was true of a lot of PCs written at this time (most of Moscheles', I think; certainly Dreyschock's). Schott's published all of Herz's concertos and although their lists appear to offer for sale 2-piano scores AND scores "avec accomp. d'orchestre" for all apart from No. 8, these do not seem to have come down to us - if, indeed, they ever existed! I know that No. 4 could only be done because I found a set of parts for Hyperion in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (and even that lacked the viola part, so that one had to be specially written for the recording).

[eschiss1]

erm... take "or full set of parts" as read (Jim, am I reading too much into your statement?)