...forthcoming from BIS, unfortunately with totally inappropriate couplings:
https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9377887--netzel-sandstrom-tarrodi-piano-concertos
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/piano-concertos/hnum/11073449
She was presumably well past her best when she composed this. It is a noisy work,with lots of notes, and makes the concerto of Langaard pere sound masterly in comparison.
Sounds like I'll have to buy it and judge for myself. Doesn't cost much to find out...
Stefan Lindgren, the pianist in the competing recording, still available to purchase by download on www.amazon.co.uk, has recently uploaded his efforts onto YouTube, for anyone who cares to listen before buying this CD. I would advise the curious to do so, before purchasing this CD, as Alan is spot on in his warning about the truly unwelcoming couplings.
I have enjoyed listening to Lindgren's version of this concerto, despite the profusion of notes. I wonder if the pianist is making it sound a bit muddy by being indulgent on the ornamentation. All the time, I kept thinking "Grieg on steroids" - just a subjective reaction with no rational justification that I'm aware of! ;D
It'll be interesting to see how Johansson's performance on the new BIS recording compares. The third movement will be different, of course, as Netzel left it unfinished and they are different completions, but also the booklet notes imply that he has edited the other two movements as well.
Hi guys and girls,
this is Peter Friis Johansson writing.
First, thanks to you all for showing interest in my recording of the Laura Netzel Piano Concerto! Since there a couple of different opinions and theories in this thread, I wanted to straight out some of the question marks.
Coupling: The musical selection on the CD is highly personal for me as it represents my own struggle to bring new and unheard music to the audience. I completely understand if you feel that Netzel could be paired with something more closely aesthetically connected to it (it might actually be in a future re-release, but that's still uncertain) but in this case I had the choice of bringing one "unsung" piece to the world or three, and for me that choice was quite simple. I think especially Sandström's piece has a big risk of being neglected (it would truly be a shame) and hopefully the inclusion of the piece in this recording can help avert that fate. I do also think that there is an artistic connection between the three pieces that works, but that's my subjective opinion and you are of course all very free to disagree. :)
Differences to Lindgren (actually Nieminen) version: I did nothing but write an ending for the piece. There are however huge unanswered questions in the manuscripts and the two versions divert at various occasions due to this. The Swedish Musical Heritage version which I perform is a critical edition so every choice can be traced. We also wanted to include everything Netzel wrote so even before the reconstruction starts our version is longer than Nieminen's. As for what I did in the ending, I'm going to send a link to the critical comments of my ending in a separate post. In short, it's much longer than the Nieminen version and takes greater artistic liberties which may be critized or appreciated.
Laura Netzel "was well past her best when she composed this": It would be interesting to hear what you think are her best works and when you think she was in her prime? Personally, I think that the piano concerto is very adventurous and that some parts are incredibly successful, but that one also can hear that this is her only attempt of a large scale work and some things really needs a lot of attention from the performers to not make it fall flat. I would say that the cello sonata probably is a stronger work as a whole, but she was really breaking new ground with the concerto and I think it deserves a place at least on the Scandinavian music scene.
Best wishes to you all,
Peter
Thanks for this very interesting and positive response, Peter.
Absolutely. I applaud your post, Mr Johansson - interesting, valuable and helpful.
Yes, thank you for that background information. How wonderful to hear from the performer himself.
Thanks for your friendly comments!
Here is the link to the critical comments on the reconstruction that I wrote. Please note that it's auto-translated from Swedish and just very hastily edited so please excuse any textual errors.
Laura Netzel Piano Concerto - Critical Comments (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_YSPeQdN3lXAZam4Ju30CkNEOjiSgOKQ/view?usp=share_link)
I am profoundly impressed by these comments on your reconstruction, Peter. A lot of thought and care has obviously gone into your work, and I found this very illuminating.
Many thanks. I'll be ordering your recording, of course!
Well, whatever others might think, I have thoroughly enjoyed hearing this lovely, romantic work. I also found Johansson's completion of the finale convincing, making for an exciting close to a fine work, well worth investigating.
I've listened to the album now and cannot disagree more with the assessment that the Netzel is "a noisy work,with lots of notes". Like Alan, I found it an enjoyable and indeed above-average romantic concerto, if we consider average to be the the middle ground of works in Hyperion's endless Romantic Piano Concerto series. And like Alan, I found Mr. Johansson's completion to be seamless and perfectly idiomatic. You'd never know someone else had completed the score.
As for the alleged inappropriateness of the couplings, I would have felt that, absent Mr. Johansson's explanation of the repertory, the only thing inappropriate was the inclusion of the Netzel in the first place. Two thirds of the disc is contemporary music; it's the Netzel that's the intruder. However, since it's meant to be a collection of Swedish concertos, as our pianist explained, the collection works just fine by me. Though they lie outside the boundaries of our remit, I very much enjoyed the other two works, with the Sandstrom in particular holding many delightful surprises. Finally, the sound is first rate. Even in just two-channel CD reproduction, it is marvelously spacious and finally detailed. Well done all around!
Thanks, John, for that positive assessment of Netzel's PC - which I think is well deserved (and accurate). For something truly noisy, keep your ear open for Nowowiejski's PC in this thread: https://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,9008.0.html
Having listened to this earlier this week (in the throngs of preparing Christmas dinner, it needs to be said) I'm entirely with John (but then, I really like Siegfried Langaard's One and a half piano concertos, so I think Terry and I don't share the same taste). My only - minor - issue with it is that I find it a bit too compact, possibly; a slighly more expansive approach might have benefited the material.
Hmmm. I have Lindgren's recording, but it looks like I need to invest in Peter Friis Johansson's new completion.
Bloodied but unbowed, I stand by my assessment of the performance by Lindgren. But I was profoundly taken by the painstaking analysis provided by Mr Johansson in his posts on this thread and have listened to an extract of his, rival,recording. I don't know the extent to which Lindgren modified the manuscript that he had in front of him, but we do know what our new colleague did, and there is a welcoming delicacy of touch about his performance that I found largely absent from the Lindgren.
I have to agree with Mark, and have told Presto that I want to order the Johansson. I think that there may well be more to the work than I first thought.
After what Ilya said, i will also have to get the Langaard and give it a decent chance............
Having just listened to the Lindgren followed by the Johansson recording, I much prefer the latter. Johansson's reading is slightly more expansive in the first two movements, which seems to suit both, and the BIS acoustic is to my ears warmer and less crowded than that on Lindgren's account. The clincher however is Johansson's completion of the finale which is more in keeping both in scale and mood with the preceding movements, and makes for a much more satisfying conclusion than the substantially shorter completion employed by Lindgren.