Recently I discovered some previously unknown recordings from Japan from King Records. Among them, a 2-disk set with a fine performance of the op 16 piano concerto of Adolf von Henselt. The set also has a recording of the Miaskovsky 24th and Schmidt's 4th! Quite unexpected. The catalog includes things we all love on this site: Glazunov, Atterberg, Taneyev for example. The site is in Taiwan: www.cdbanq.com (http://www.cdbanq.com) and is English-friendly. Worth a look.
Unfortunately the 2-CD set including the Henselt PC appears to be currently out of stock:
http://www.cdbanq.com/Hiroshi-Nagao-Hiroshi-Kodama-Kiyotaka-Teraoka-Osaka-Symphony-Orchestra--Myaskovsky-Henselt-F-Schmitt-no-Sekai-2CDS-Japan-CD-KICC-1004_p_77140.html#sthash.dVQdVBc5.dpbs (http://www.cdbanq.com/Hiroshi-Nagao-Hiroshi-Kodama-Kiyotaka-Teraoka-Osaka-Symphony-Orchestra--Myaskovsky-Henselt-F-Schmitt-no-Sekai-2CDS-Japan-CD-KICC-1004_p_77140.html#sthash.dVQdVBc5.dpbs)
Don't forget the old, and premiere (slightly cut, but genius) version of the Henselt Concerto with Michael Ponti, which is available today in that Brilliant Box full of Romantic Piano Concertos reissues!
To me, Ponti is one of the gretaest pianist of the 20th century. Listen to his complete Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Scriabin - and to all those forgotten Concerti. Also his interptetation of the Raff Concerto (although with cuts, again), is insurpassable.
And there was also an LP version of the Henselt Concerto by Earl Wild (am I right, was it on Columbia?).
The latest version is on an RCA CD box with Schumann's complete works for Piano and Orchestra by pianist Lev Vinocour - in which we learn that it was "corrected" by Robert Schumann.
I think the old Columbia version you mean was played by Raymond Lewenthal, a stylish but more fallible pianist than Wild. A Wild version would have been heaven.
David
I agree with Hadrianus - Ponti was so good and so dedicated, apparently, to forgotten romantic concertos. Maybe the orchestras weren't first rate - who cared? It was the pianism that counted. For me, those recordings couldn't have been timed better - I had just finished reading Schoenbergs The Great Pianists - and voila - there they were. I was so excited.
As to Earl Wild, he was a great pianist but it seemed to me that he often took tempos a bit faster, at least faster than i cared for. Perhaps he couldn't resist showing off his amazing ability....... It brings to mind, and I've probably told this before, we were in Berlin some years ago and went to hear Lazar Berman play the Scriabin PC. It was an exquisite performance. Then his son, a violinist, proceeded to destroy the Tchaikovsky VC. Zipped through it like a robot. Not an ounce of feeling. He knew the notes perfectly but he sure didn't know Peter Ilyich...... i expect all of us have been to a concert like that at one time or another.
Sorry to be off track here..... ;D ;D
The thought of a recording of the Henselt by Wild is enough to give me goose bumps.
A concerto of this calibre surely must be due another outing, but the amount of pianists that could do it justice is probably in single figures. I certainly would not relish another Hamelin type Midi.
Thal
Hamelin gets no respect, ah well... maybe he just sounds better in live concert than on recording.
Hamelin's a piano great, There: I've said it. But then I didn't grow up with Ponti, poor orchestras and cuts. There: I've said that too (ducks!)
I agree, Hamelin is my one of my favourite living pianists. I grew up with Ponti and, although I am forever grateful to him for introducing me to this vast world of the unsung I did find him quite charmless and straightforward though undoubtedly brilliant. By comparison I love the way Hamelin turns a phrase and can dance within a section and have never found him Midi-like. Different strokes eh?
Returning to Henselt I adore the Lewenthal version (and the other concertante on those discs, especially the Scharwenka). Hamelin's piano is too far back in the mix and the Vinocour is too careful (and Schumann has cut out the gorgeous chord sequence in bars 382-3 of the finale!).
The fistfuls of wrong notes at the end of the Lewenthal create a kind of excitement that I'm pretty sure would have horrified the composer, perfectionist that he was.
David
Oh yes, of course, Lewenthal; thanks. And there was a little bonus disc with explanations included. Golden age of Columbia!
QuoteAnd there was a little bonus disc...
The little bonus disc that came with Lewenthal's Alkan album was almost the main course!
QuoteEarl Wild ... was a great pianist but it seemed to me that he often took tempos a bit faster...
I'm not a fan of speed per se, but the fast performance of the Rachmaninov 3 finale by Wild and Horenstein is sensational if only because Wild makes it all sound like child's play.
Wild did Scharwenka 1 on RCA. I don't think he ever did the Henselt.
Yes, JimL - and Wild did the best performance so far of the Paderewski Piano Concerto!
My only quibble with the Wild Paderewski is that according to the liner notes of the old LP, he took some liberties with the score. I don't recall exactly what they were (its been a while since I've heard that performance, and I really had nothing to compare it with back then) but I'm assuming that the Lane release was of the ur-text of the concerto and is the best performance of the score as written that we have.
I haven't checked the concerto but Wild's recording of Paderewski's Polish fantaisie has many touch ups to it/flourishes in parts where either the piano doesn't play or has a simpler original part. It sounds very effective, even if not everyone agrees with works being fiddled with.
He also added final flourishes to the Scharwenka doesn't he? I seem to remember the orchestra ends one of the movements, not piano and orchestra. For that matter (and getting back on topic) Lewenthal adds piano to the final bars of the Henselt first movement that is otherwise just orchestra.
For the purists in here: at the time these "Romantic" composers performed their concertos, it was a custom to add flourishes and to improvise, so what?
QuoteLewenthal adds piano to the final bars of the Henselt first movement that is otherwise just orchestra.
Frank Cooper did the same with his recording of Dreyschock's Concert Piece on Genesis - very effective too. As "hadrianus" so rightly remarks, when it comes to RPCs the text should not be considered sacrosanct.
... and, as far as I remember having been told, Michael Ponti also sustained the orchestra just for fun in the finale of Raff's Concerto. Not sure whether that was used as a final take, cannot compare with a score...
The piano part that Lewenthal added to the final tutti at the end of the first movement of the Henselt concerto was actually a written-out "cadenza" to resolve the piano part in the tonic (it ends on D-flat) composed by Franz Liszt, or so I read somewhere a long time ago. And Lewenthal virtually recomposed the final measures of the finale of Scharwenka PC 2 in order to omit the quotes from the first movement (which he failed to do completely - the tutti that he left in was almost verbatim from the first movement, just before the cadenza).
Today 12 May, is the two hundredth anniversary of Adolph Von Henselt's birth. Please give his piano concerto a spin, you won't be disappointed !
Going back to JimL's post in late March (which I missed the first time around), Liszt also wrote a tiny album leaf (running to just 8 bars!) based on the theme of the second movement of Henselt's concerto (catalogue number S167p) - it was published by the Liszt Society in 2013 and underneath Liszt writes:
"Motiv des wunderbaren Larghetto in A.Henselts Concert" and "Dem componiston verbleibt / 40 Jahren verhrungsvoll / und freundschaftlich ergebenst - F. Liszt". This is dated May 1883. It also says at the end of the last written bar "immer schon under schoner!"
Perhaps someone who did German could translate this for me - I have a rough idea but it's probably wrong!! :)
I grew up with the Lewenthal recording of the Henselt and loved it; the second movement is as beautiful as Liszt evidently felt. After hearing the Ponti and Hamelin recordings, and studying the score, I think anyone who can get to the third movement with any energy left is near superhuman. As I grew to know the piece better, I think Lewenthal was just plain exhausted by the time he got to that monstrous coda, and Ponti was getting close too in his version. Hamelin gets through very well, but I don't remember the hair-raising "is he going to make it?" excitement that's in the other versions, especially in the run-up-&-down to the thundering octaves in the final bars. I very much want to hear the Japanese recording now that I know about it.
Incidentally, Lewenthal made an excellent observation in stating that one of the hurdles in the Henselt is that the orchestration is quite heavy; it's certainly as full-bodied as the Litolff and Liszt concertos, if not more so (the trombones are prominent in all three movements, for instance, and the horn writing is lavish and pretty tricky). I also think the orchestral writing is extraordinarily accomplished considering that Henselt wrote so little for the orchestra; it's colourful, inventive, and by no means simply functional orchestral accompaniment.
So far, the only recording of the Henselt that I've ever encountered where it's possible to hear what the piano is playing in the bass register at the very end of the finale, is the Ponti. In both the Lewenthal and the Hamelin versions, those 5 orchestral chords just seem to drown out the piano, leaving nothing but a barely detectable rumble. Maybe that's how Henselt intended it, but I don't think so. I will say that I agree about the orchestration. Marvelously scored, especially since the only other orchestral music by Henselt that I know of is the Meyerbeer Variations, Op. 11.