THE ROMANTIC PIANO CONCERTO, VOL. 53   HYPERION CDA67635

This is the 53rd volume in Hyperion’s ambitious Romantic Piano Concerto series - one of the glories of the recording industry. The first volume, featuring concertos by Moszkowski and Paderewski, was recorded in 1991 and the series now includes 131 works for piano and orchestra, fifty-nine of them being premiere recordings and many others being works that have only been recorded once before. The performers include some of the greatest pianists, orchestras and conductors in the world, and each disc is a miracle of virtuosity, scholarship and musicianship. This latest album features the acclaimed French-Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin with Ilan Volkov and the excellent Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester in performances of Max Reger’s Piano Concerto in F minor, a much misunderstood work written towards the end of his carreer, and Richard Strauss’s Burleske. The challenging Reger concerto has too many notes for the average pianist but Hamelin brings to the music a passion and a lyricism so often lost in lesser performances. The Strauss Burleske for piano and orchestra, written when the composer was 21 and devoted to Brahms, is a Hamelin ‘party-piece’. He performs the piece here with his usual brilliance, perfectly capturing the spirited essence of this exhilarating and humorous music. ‘One of the most adventurous and certainly the most courageous pianists of recent times.’ - International Piano Quarterly. Marc-André Hamelin has also contributed to the Liszt bicentenary with another new album from Hyperion, LISZT - PIANO SONATA (CDA67760). Liszt’s Sonata in B minor is one of the peaks of the repertoire and there have been many previous recordings, but Hamelin’s virtuoso performance here makes this an outstanding version. This CD recital opens with a lesser-known masterwork, the Fantasy and Fugue on B-A-C-H, and for light relief there is Liszt’s scintillating supplement to his Italian Année de Pèlerinage, the three pieces of Venezia e Napoli. Perhaps the emotional core of the recital is Liszt’s intensely spiritual Bénédiction du Dieu dans la solitude, inspired by religious-philosophical poems of the French Romantic Alphonse de Lamartine. Lush, expressive and striking, it remains one of one of the composer’s least performed works. Liszt himself was particularly fond of the piece and often played it for friends who came to visit.

MENDELSSOHN - VIOLIN CONCERTO   DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 476 3159

This disc is the follow up recording from the remarkable young Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti to her first CD with Deutsche Grammophon, which featured her outstanding performance of the challenging Szymanowski Concerto No 1. The BBC’s Young Musician of the Year for 2004 now turns to the more mainstream Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and her playing is again as assured, fresh and lively as we have come to expect. As well as the Mendelssohn masterpiece, the new album also includes the World Premiere recording of an atmospheric two-movement piece by her fellow-Scot, James MacMillan, composed especially for Benedetti. The title ‘From Ayreshire’ is a reference to the musicians’ shared home county. Both of these pieces as well as an arrangement of Schubert’s Serenade (Leise flehen meine Lieder, D957) are conducted by James MacMillan with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Completing the disc are a harp and violin arrangement by Skaila Kanga of Schubert’s ever popular Ave Maria and two short Mozart pieces (Rondo K.373 & Adagio K.261) directed by Benedetti from the violin. This is elegant musicianship from a performer who is still not quite 19 years old, and although Nicola Benedetti failed to win the two awards she was nominated for at the recent Classical Brit Awards she will surely gather many others before too long.

COPLAND & FINZI - CLARINET CONCERTOS    SOMM 244

Sarah Williamson was Concerto finalist in the BBC Young Musician competition in 2002, when she gave an acclaimed performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra of Aaron Copland’s sparkling, jazz-influenced Clarinet Concerto, originally commissioned in 1947 by American virtuoso clarinettist Benny Goodman. Sarah Williamson went on to win second prize in the Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians in Berlin, again playing the Copland Concerto, and has subsequently toured many countries, including USA, and played at festivals across the UK. Fresh from her virtuoso performance at Classic FM Live earlier this year, this outstanding young musician has now released her debut album of twentieth century music. As well as the popular clarinet concertos of Copland and Gerald Finzi, she also includes British composer Finzi’s mellow Romance for Strings and an unusual chamber ensemble version of Copland’s celebratory Appalachian Spring suite, where the Orchestra of the Swan, conducted by David Curtis, have a chance to shine.

LYAPUNOV - PIANO CONCERTOS 1 & 2    NAXOS 8.570783

Sergey Mikhaylovich Lyapunov was a talented Russian composer of the late 19th and early 20th century. He was also a fine pianist and many of his best works are for solo piano, showing his mastery of the instrument and understanding of its technical capabilities. His piano music displays a considerable melodic gift and bears comparison with that of Rachmaninov, Scriabin and Mily Balakirev, leader of Russia’s ‘Mighty Handful’ of composers. Lyapunov was strongly influenced by Balakirev, to whom he dedicated his Glinka Prize-winning Piano Concerto No. 1. This compelling piece of music is by turns heroic, tranquil and convincingly Russian. His noble Piano Concerto No. 2, with its majestic, Borodin-inspired finale, deserves a place among the great Romantic piano concertos and would surely be heard more often if written by a more famous composer. Both concertos are excellently played on this recording by the young Georgian pianist Shorena Tsintsabadze with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Dmitry Yablonsky. The CD also includes Lyapunov’s Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes, often reminiscent of Liszt’s virtuosic pianistic style. Liapunov’s well-crafeted music, with its colourful and imaginative orchestration, shows him to be one of the most talented nationalist composers of his time. Highly recommended.

RÓZSA, SERLY & BARTÓK - VIOLA CONCERTOS    HYPERION CDA67687

The acclaimed young British viola player Lawrence Power continues his recording all of the seminal twentieth-century works for the viola with three Hungarian works for viola and orchestra. The best-known of these is Béla Bartok’s viola concerto, completed after the composer’s death by Tibor Serly, who was Bartók’s most trusted friend and pupil in his last years in the USA. Stylistically, the work is similar to Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto which was written at the same time and has a similar elegiac quality. The great Scottish viola player William Primrose (who edited the solo part himself) was able to premiere Serly’s realisation of the concerto in 1949, with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Antal Dorati. Almost immediately it was recognised as one of the major contributions to the small literature of concertos for the viola and has been a cornerstone of the instrument’s repertoire ever since. Serly’s own Rhapsody for Viola and Orchestra is charming, essentially folkloric music, though it dwells somewhat within Bartok’s shadow. Nevertheless it’s a skilful and elaborate work with a rousing finale. The disc is completed by a modern viola concerto by the film composer Miklós Rósza - a late workcomposed for Pinchas Zukerman who give its premiere performance in 1984. The overall impression of the work is individual, tense, darkly Romantic and authentically Hungarian in inspiration. Lawrence Power is a fine advocate for the viola and his playing highlights the rich, autumnal tones of this unfairly neglected instrument.

HYPERION IS 30!

October 1980 saw the foundation of a new classical independent record label that has gone on to be an enormous success with critics and public alike. A revolutionary release, Hildegard of Bingen’s A Feather on the breath of God, put the company firmly on the map in 1982, since when it has become a byword for excellence in all aspects of the recording process: repertoire, performances by the greatest musicians of the day, scholarship, sound recording and production. This reputation has remained unchanged and unchallenged, and to mark the label’s 30th birthday, Hyperion re-releasing 30 seminal discs from its catalogue at mid-price. The discs include benchmark recordings of great music, performed by some of the outstanding artists of the last 30 years including, among others, Steven Isserlis, Matthias Goerne, Angela Hewitt, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Takács Quartet, Stephen Hough and The Choir of Westminster Cathedral. Many of these recordings are Gramophone Award winners and Records of the Year, including SAINT-SAENS - PIANO CONCERTOS 3, 4 & 5 (CDA30018), marvelously played by Stephen Hough with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo. There is also a CD of SHOSTAKOVICH & SHCHEDRIN PIANO CONCERTOS (CDA30023) performed by brilliant French-Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Litton. ‘Marc-André Hamelin is a superb advocate for all three pieces - the zip and zest of much of the writing presenting no difficulty to this extraordinary virtuoso.’ - Gramophone. See here for more details of all 30 birthday re-releases available from Hyperion.

SZYMANOWSKI - VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1 & SYMPHONY NO. 3 DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4778771, DG  

The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski was born in 1882 to a wealthy land-owning family in Tymoszówka, then part of the Russian Empire and now in the Ukraine. He studied music privately with his father then continued at Gustav Neuhaus’s school in Elisavetgrad and had private lessons with Zawirski for harmony and with Zygmunt Noskowski for counterpoint and composition. The years 1907-19 were particularly eventful as he travelled in Germany, Italy, France and England before returning to Tymoszówka to study and compose. In 1917, Szymanowski’s house was destroyed in the civil war and the family moved to Elisavetgrad where he wrote poetry and a long novel, Efebos, before settling in Warsaw, where he campaigned to re-invigorate Polish music education. His own music influenced by the work of Wagner, Richard Strauss, Reger, Scriabin, Debussy and Ravel, as well as Arabic and Persian culture, Polish folk songs and the music of his countryman Chopin. Pierre Boulez’s first ever Szymanowski recording features his Violin Concerto No. 1 and the Symphony No. 3. Violin virtuoso Christian Tetzlaff and the Wiener Philharmoniker are in great form in these two orchestral works that represent the high-water mark of Szymanowski’s impressionism, an idiom mingling the refined sonorities of Debussy, Ravel and late Scriabin with the impassioned Romanticism of the New German School. Inspired by Persian poet Rumi, Szymanowski subtitled his Third Symphony ‘Song of the Night’ after a poem by the 13th-century mystic. Emotional, even ecstatic music conveys the poem’s supernatural vision of night’s unravelling of the mystery of God. The CD comes with an in-depth essay on the Polish composer as well as background on Boulez’s approach to his music, original illustrations and photo material. An additional CD with this edition has excerpts from the rehearsal of the symphony as well as audio interviews with Boulez in French, English and German.

OLE BULL - VIOLIN CONCERTOS    2L 2L-067-SABD

The Norwegian adventurer, violin virtuoso, composer and international star Ole Bull was born the eldest of ten children in Bergen in 1810. At the age of four or five, he could play all of the songs he had heard his mother play on the violin. At age nine, he played first violin in the orchestra of Bergen’s theatre and was a soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. He was sent to the University of Christiania, but failed his examinations and joined the Musical Lyceum, a musical society, becoming its director in 1828. Within music and drama he was a pioneer in the development of a national identity, and on the concert stage his fabulous playing skills and intense charisma won him the sobriquet ‘the Scandinavian Paganini’. Some of his most attractive tunes, as well as the rural potpourri Et Sæterbesøg (A Mountain Vision) and Sæterjensens Søntag (The Herdgirl’s Sunday) have remained part of Norway’s cultural heritage; on this recording they can be heard alongside his two exciting virtuosic violin concertos and the fiery Spanish fantasia La Verbena de San Juan, dedicated to Queen Isabella. The concertos and the fantasia were rediscovered only a few years ago, and this is the first recording ever made of these attractive works. The A major Concerto was written in Italy in 1834 and boasts everything one could ever dream of when it comes to attractive tunes and giddy virtuosity. No. 2, Concerto Fantastico, lives indisputably up to its name and confirms what Franz Liszt wrote in 1840: ‘He is a sort of savage’s genius, possessing an abundance of original, enchanting ideas. In brief, he has moved me; it is a long time since that has happened to me.’ Bull visited the United States several times and was a great success. In 1853, he obtained a large tract of land in Pennsylvania and founded a colony, which was called New Norway but which is commonly referred to as Ole Bull Colony. The land consisted of four communities and Bull called the highest point Nordjenskald, which became the location of his unfinished castle. This venture was soon given up, as there was scarcely any land to till, and Bull went back to giving concerts. Annar Follesø is the violin soloist on this recording with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra conducted by Ole Kristian Ruud, providing a perfect introduction to the greatest Scandinavian violin virtuoso of his time. This excellent two disc set includes both a Hybrid SACD and a Pure Audio Blu-ray disc.

BEETHOVEN - PIANO CONCERTO NO. 5        BIS BISSACD1793

For the final instalment of his recordings of Beethoven’s works for piano and orchestra, Ronald Brautigam has saved ‘the final crowning glory of his concerto output’, as Beethoven specialist Barry Cooper describes the Fifth Piano Concerto in his liner notes. The ‘Emperor’ is coupled on this SACD release with the Choral Fantasia – an intriguing work scored for piano, orchestra and chorus with vocal soloists. Ronald Brautigam is one of Holland’s leading musicians, remarkable not only for his virtuosity and musicality but also for the eclectic nature of his musical interests. In 1984 he was awarded the Nederlandse Muziekprijs, the highest Dutch musical award, and he performs regularly with leading European orchestras. His highly successful association with the Swedish label BIS has resulted in more than 30 titles so far and the individual discs in Brautigam’s Beethoven series have received numerous distinctions, including a MIDEM Classical Award in 2010, with his engaging performances ranked alongside classic recordings by legendary pianists. Ronald Brautigam, the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra and Andrew Parrott are in their usual top form, with the brief but crucial appearance of the eminent Eric Ericson Chamber Choir in the Choral Fantasia. Soloists include Hannah Holgersson (soprano), Marie Olhans (mezzo-soprano), Maria Sanner (alto), Mikael Stenbaek (tenor), Gunnar Birgersson (baritone) and Ove Pettersson (bass). ‘One feels almost as if one were a contemporary of Beethoven’s, one of the first, immensely astonished – not to say agitated – individuals to hear this music.’ - Süddeutsche Zeitung.

JAQUES-DALCROZE - CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA  GUILD GMCD 7336

Émile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865 - 1950), was a Swiss musician and an inspiring music educator. He studied composition with Anton Bruckner, Gabriel Fauré and Léo Delibes, and in 1892 he became professor of harmony at the Geneva Conservatory. In the early twentieth century he invented eurhythmics, an experimental and highly successful method of learning that involves teaching musical concepts through movement to develop an integrated and natural feel for musica_Casanova__70.jpgal expression. Turning the body into a well-tuned musical instrument, Dalcroze thought, was the best way to provide a solid musical foundation. As well as being an outstanding teacher - eventually founding his own Institut in Geneva in 1915 - Jaques-Dalcroze was an accomplished composer, writing operas such as Le Violon maudit, Sancho Panza and Les Jumeaux de Bergame, as well as songs, choral and chamber works, and music for orchestra. This outstanding CD features his two beautiful Violin Concertos, which show him to be a master of his craft. These committed, vibrant performances were recorded recently in Moscow by the gifted young Russian violinist Rodion Zamuruev with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alexander Anissimov. Highly recommended.

GRIEG - PIANO CONCERTO      2L  2L60SABD

The Piano Concerto in A minor, Edvard Grieg’s only completed concerto, was among his earliest important works. It was written by the 24 year old composer in 1868 in Denmark, where he found the climate warmer than in his native Norway. He revised the concerto at least seven times and the final version was completed only a few weeks before his death 1907. It was the first piano concerto ever to be recorded, by pianist Wilhelm Backhaus in 1909, though due to the technology of the time it was drastically abridged to only six minutes. In 2007, conductor Rolf Gupta gave the first Norwegian performance of the concerto with the legendary Australian pianist Percy Grainger as the posthumous soloist. On this recording, the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra accompanies Grainger’s original and controversial interpretation of the concerto. In addition, the violinist Øyvind Bjorå and pianolist Rex Lawson perform Grieg’s Violin Sonata in C minor. The recording also includes a handful of Grieg’s Lyric Pieces, performed by the composer himself. Astonishingly, these performances have not been available to the public until now. Two different instruments have facilitated Grainger’s and Grieg’s encounters with the KSO/Gupta. Grainger plays on a form of musical time machine, the Duo-Art reproducing piano, which is something like an analogue predecessor of the computer, powered by an electric suction pump, and controlled automatically by perforated rolls of paper. Grieg, on the other hand, has been restored to life by means of a foot-pedalled pianola, played by Rex Lawson. For this recording, both instruments were fitted in front of a Steinway concert grand piano and re-performed the playing of Grainger in 1921 and Grieg in 1906. These fascinating Hybrid SACD + Pure Audio Blu-ray recordings bring new insights to one of the most popular piano concertos ever written.

TCHAIKOVSKY - PIANO CONCERTOS 1, 2 & 3    HYPERION CDA67711/2

This new release Hyperion’s splendid Romantic Piano Concerto series features Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1, played by the acclaimed British-born pianist, composer and writer Stephen Hough with the Minnesota Orchestra under their Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä. Tchaikovsky’s First Concerto combines great virtuosity in the piano part with the equally masterful orchestration, making it one of the most popular works in the repertoire. The Second Concerto is dedicated to Nikolai Rubinstein, who had insisted that he be allowed to perform it at the premiere as a way of making up for his harsh criticism of the composer’s First Piano Concerto. Rubinstein never played it, however, as he died before the premiere took place in New York in 1881. The music of the short Third Concerto began life as a symphony before Tchaikovsky decided to recast it, resulting in a work that is more austere than its companions. As well as the three concertos, this two-disc set also includes less well known music by Tchaikovsky written for piano and orchestra - his flamboyant Concert Fantasia in G and two alternative versions of the second movement of his Concerto No 2 - as well as two delightful short pieces for solo piano. The result is a set of unique importance: a winning combination of a pianist at the height of his powers, a world-class orchestra and director and an intriguing repertoire, outstandingly recorded and packaged in a slipcase with comprehensive notes and a series catalogue. ‘Anyone who heard Stephen Hough’s barnstorming performances of all the Tchaikovsky piano concertos at last year’s Proms will want to own these CDs.’ - The Observer.

MENDELSSOHN - VIOLIN CONCERTO   DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON 4778575

The violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter was born in Rheinfelden in Baden in 1963 and embarked on her international career as a soloist in 1976 at the Lucerne Festival. A year later she made her Salzburg debut at the Whitsun Concerts under Herbert von Karajan and has gone on to have a glittering international career both in concert and in the recording studio, making her first with Deutsche Grammophon at the age of 14 with Mozart’s Violin Concertos nos. 3 and 5. Over 25 years after her first recording of the Mendelssohn Concerto with Herbert von Karajan, Anne-Sophie Mutter here presents a fresh and stunning new take on one of the most popular concertos in the violin repertoire. This unique DVD/CD project was produced in Mendelssohn’s home town of Leipzig to celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2009 and offers not only a state-of-the-art audio recording, but also a separate full-length DVD with an exclusive documentary. The extremely popular Violin Concerto was recorded live in concert at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig under the direction of the Kurt Masur, one of the most knowledgeable and experienced Mendelssohn interpreters alive. As the long-time chief conductor of Mendelssohn’s own orchestra, Masur stands for a great tradition and sound which is happily distinguished on these recordings. The chamber music featured on the disc was recorded at the beautiful Brahms-Saal in the Vienna Musikverein and with the Piano Trio No. 1 and the demanding Sonata in F major, Mutter has chosen masterpieces from Mendelssohn’s chamber music repertoire to broaden the picture. Here too she collaborates with long-term chamber music partners André Previn and Lynn Harrell.Anne-Sophie Mutter’s superb technique is always at the service of the music, in this superb recordings of Mendelssohn’s concerto. Her sensuous playing elicits all the moods of this wondrous music, by turns passionate, reflective, gentle, impulsive and joyful. The DVD performance finds her in a stunning long blue dress that adds to the eroticism inherent in this great music. ‘Intense, rapturous, poised, exquisite.’ - FT.

KORNGOLD, ROZSA - HOLLYWOOD      ORCHID ORC100005

Violinist Matthew Trusler’s first concerto recording features two pieces premièred by Jascha Heifetz – the violin concertos of Erich Korngold and Miklós Rózsa, together with three short pieces that Heifetz popularised - Ponce/Heifetz: Estrellita; Benjamin/Primrose: Jamaican Rumba; Foster/Heifetz: Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair. At the end of the Second World War, Korngold retired from films to concentrate on music for the concert hall. His lush Violin Concerto lyrical idiom reminiscent of fin de siècle Vienna was the first such work and it quickly became the composer’s most popular piece. It was premiered in 1947 by Heifetz and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, receiving an enthusiastic ovation. Rózsa’s passionate, Hungarian-inspired Violin Concerto was written in 1953-54 for Heifetz, who collaborated with the composer in fine-tuning it. Rózsa later adapted parts of the concerto for the score of Billy Wilder’s 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, the plot of which, Wilder has said, was inspired by Rózsa’s music. Matthew Trusler is a passionate lover of the style and approach to violin playing during the Heifetz era, and he (Trusler) has a particular affinity for the composers of that period, receiving much acclaim for his performances of concertos by Walton, Berg, Britten, Prokofiev and Korngold. Yasuo Shinozaki conducts the excellent Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra. ‘Trusler assumes the Heifetz (and Perlman) mantle with ease’ - Daily Telegraph. Orchid Classics has also released SCHUBERT: DIE SCHONE MULLERIN (ORC100006), the composer’s masterly setting of poems by Wilhelm Müller. The acclaimed British tenor, James Gilchrist, has performed this cycle many times in concert, usually in partnership with the exciting young pianist Anna Tilbrook, but this is the first time that they have recorded the work. The CD booklet contains full German text with English translation, and an essay by Richard Morrison of The Times providing fascinating insights into both Schubert and Die Schöne Müllerin.

MACKENZIE - VIOLIN CONCERTO/PIBROCH SUITE   HELIOS CDH55343

Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie (1847–1935) was the son of an eminent Edinburgh violinist and conductor. On the advice of a member of Gungls band who had taken up his residence in Edinburgh, Mackenzie was sent for his musical education to Sondershausen, Germany, where he entered the conservatorium under Ulrich and Stein, remaining there from 1857 to 1861, when he entered the ducal orchestra as second violin. At this time he made Liszt’s acquaintance. On his return, he won the King’s Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where he studied violin, composition and piano. before establishing himself as a teacher of the piano in Edinburgh. He also performed as a violinist and was appointed precentor of St. George’s Church in 1870. On the advice of von Bülow, Mackenzie settled in Florence, Tuscany, in 1879 to concentrate on composing, writing the cantatas The Bride and Jason as well as his first opera, Colomba. The violin always played a major role in his life and his Violin Concerto was written in 1884 while he was resident at the castle of Borgo alla Collina, Casentino. The work was conducted by the composer, with Pablo de Sarasate as soloist, at its Birmingham Festival premiere in 1885 and acclaimed by the critics. The Pibroche Suite for violin and orchestra was composed four years later, written at the request of Sarasate for inclusion in the Leeds Festival programme of 1889. The composer completed the score during a summer vacation in Braemar and the work premiered under the baton of the composer at the Victoria (Town) Hall, Leeds. Inspired by traditional Scottish melodies, the piece is musically related to the idea of a theme and variations. Like Parry and Stanford, Mackenzie was part of the renaissance of ‘English’ music in the late nineteenth century. The melodic and attractive works of this late-Romantic composer are inexplicably rarely performed today so this is a welcome release featuring bold and persuasive performances by the excellent Malcolm Stewart, with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley and David Davies. Highly recommended.

BRITTEN - WORKS FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA   HYPERION CDA67625

As well as operas such as Peter Grimes and Death in Venice, Benjamin Britten wrote many solo works, a great choral War Requiem and music for orchestra and chamber ensembles, including symphonies and concerti. His ‘simple and direct’ Piano Concerto was originally designated ‘No. 1’, although it was the only one he composed. Dedicated to his friend and fellow composer Lennox Berkeley, it was written to exploit various qualities of the piano, such as its range and percussive qualities, as well as Britten’s skills as a pianist. The concerto was first performed with the twenty-four year old composer as soloist at a Henry Wood Promenade Concert at the Queen’s Hall, London, in 1938. Britten subsequently rewrote the concerto in 1945, making minor revisions to three of the four movements and replacing the third with completely new music. The tightly constructed work as usually performed today consists of four movements: a lengthy Toccata, an elegant Waltz, a marvelously orchestrated Impromptu and a satirical, swaggering March. This CD also includes a recording of that rarely heard original third movement - an beautiful Messiaen-like recitative and aria that only a composer of Britten’s genius could afford to discard. Soloist Steven Osborne and the Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ilan Volkov, give an exhilaratingly bravura performance of this underrated concerto, together with the virtuosic Diversions for piano (left-hand) and orchestra (written for the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein in 1940) and Young Apollo, a virtuosic piece composed for piano, string quartet and string orchestra (1939). These thrilling, revelatory performances confirm Britten’s reputation as English music’s greatest composer since Henry Purcell.