Romantic Piano Concerto - Vol. 65

[FBerwald]

This one mysteriously appeared on Hyperion website sometime back before disappearing.... well it's finally here. Slated for a May release .



Romntic Piano Concerto Vol. 65 - Albéniz & Granados

Isaac Albéniz     
Piano Concerto No 1 in A minor 'Concierto fantástico', Op. 78
Rapsodia española, Op. 70

Enrique Granados    
Piano Concerto in C minor 'Patético'  [Recomposed by Melani Mestre]

Melani Mestre (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins

[Gareth Vaughan]

How marvellous! I thought this one might have sunk without trace.

[TerraEpon]

So that's what....like the fourth orchestration of the Rapsodia?

[Gareth Vaughan]

From the Hyperion notes it would appear so, yes.

[thalbergmad]

Marvellous indeed, but i was rather hoping for the Malats as that is a right old romp.

Perhaps it will follow.

Thal

[Alan Howe]

Just spotted this myself. Glad to see it's been flagged up here already - thanks.

[FEBCT]

It appears the two Albeniz works can be found on a Brana disc (Felicja Blumenthal, pianist) with the wonderfully interesting coupling of the Concerto in Brazilian Forms by Hekel Tavares. 

This latter work, imo, beats the Granados pairing by miles. 

But there's always room for one more!

[Gareth Vaughan]

It has been explained before on this forum why the Tavares concerto has not been, and will not, be recorded by Hyperion. And a sorry tale it is... out of which Hyperion emerges smelling of roses and the Tavares family of something very different!

[Alan Howe]

I have that CD and I agree that the Tavares is a very nice piece indeed. However, the whole CD sounds pretty ancient by now (thin and muffled), so I look forward to hearing the two Albeniz works and the Granados/Mestre in up-to-date sound - and also to the contribution of the BBCSSO conducted by that superbly consistent and conscientious artist, Martyn Brabbins.

[Alan Howe]

Audio excerpts here:
http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA67918

[TerraEpon]

Surprised no one talked about this.

I got this yesterday and it triggered a very interesting phenominon -- as discussed elsewhere the Granados concerto consists of the later two movements being orchestrations of piano pieces. The final movement is Allegro de Concierto, a fantastic piece that really works well as a concerto movement (and not just because of its title). But the second movment.....Orientale from the Spanish Dances. Something about the piece is almost /distracting/ in the middle of a piano concerto. I'm not sure if it's the familiarity, or that the orchestration isn't as good as it good be, but it's weird all told.

Still, as a whole it's a great disc.

[FBerwald]

For some reason, after the initial hearing [which I enjoyed], this disc soon lost its appeal. It's among my least favorite releases from the RPC series! There are so many concertos yet to be discovered [or in case of Bortkiewicz a duplicate]; I felt that Hyperion wasted its resources on a re-composition exercise rather than unearthing original and unknown works!

[lasm2000]

Well, that leads us to the old question of why haven't some of the very very very obvious candidates been recorded. I am thinking of Bortikiewicz 2,3, Rubinstein 3,5, Raff, Bronsart and Ponce. At least for the Ponce they have a good reason, if I recall correctly it was part of that stupid copyright issue with the family of certain brazilian composer.

But then, back to the original post, my issue with the "Granados" is that it wasn't really even "completed", it was downright recomposed since there was not enough material to do what we could honestly call a completion. The cover clearly states that it was recomposed by Melani Mestre, but then, if it was composed by him why should we call it a work by Granados?

[Ilja]

Can't speak for Hyperion of course, but I can imagine there's little stimulus to record concertos where competent recent recordings already exist. So that rules out Bortkiewicz's last two and Raff. And I seem to remember that there are plans afoot to record the Bronsart.

[Gareth Vaughan]

my issue with the "Granados" is that it wasn't really even "completed", it was downright recomposed since there was not enough material to do what we could honestly call a completion. The cover clearly states that it was recomposed by Melani Mestre

I agree - largely. When Mike Spring was in charge of the series he was very much against wholescale reconstruction of a work which involved additions that had nothing to do with the extant fragments in order to produce a "completion". He had nothing against the pianist composing the odd missing bar or adding an orchestral part when there was no full score and the particular part had been lost (as had to be done with the violas in Herz's 4th PC). I think, on the whole, he was right. But perhaps Mestri came to Hyperion with the work all ready, prepared by himself, and wanted so much to record it he substantially financed the disk! I don't know, of course - but maybe such a scenario might explain this uncharacteristic excursion into territory of (possibly) dubious merit. The work is enjoyable, but does not really hang together.