14.05.2011 - Piano Concertos Vol.2

Neglected Masterpieces for Piano and Orchestra

Following the highly successful release of Wolfram Lorenzen's recordings of Max Reger's monumental Piano Concerto, coupled with rarely heard concert pieces by Bartók and Mendelssohn, this boutique Munich label is now presenting the authoritative pianist in another trilogy of neglected or unknown masterpieces for piano and orchestra. Lorenzen, a pianist in the German tradition of Wilhelm Kempff, has been singled out time and again by critics for his top-quality recordings of Schumann and Reger.

The great four-movement Third Piano Concerto composed in 1974 by Germany's leading figure in the Hindemith tradition, Harald Genzmer (1909-2007), is a magnum opus. Genzmer's oeuvre is permeated by influences from Hindemith, Stravinsky, and classical French modernism, forming a vibrant style with an unmistakable personality. His music is full of surprises, nimble and brilliant, yet of great depth and masterly coherence, even in his large-scale creations. Anyone seeking pathways beyond the intellectual avant-garde and antiquated romanticisms and post-modernisms is bound to be delighted. Connoisseurs of piano music will find this concerto a true gem - highly demanding in technique and timbre, extremely ingratiating in its buoyant virtuosity and numerous solo cadenzas, and ranging widely from the most delicate poetry to percussive outbursts. The treatment of the orchestra is likewise masterly in its impressionist polish and splendid contrapuntal fabric. A great concerto, and a worthy successor to the modern classics of the twentieth-century repertoire, whether by Bartók or Stravinsky, Prokofiev or Hindemith, Jolivet or Shostakovich.

The G-major Piano Concerto stands alongside its
D-major counterpart as Joseph Haydn's best-known and most challenging contribution to the genre. Though found in the standard repertoires of a few great pianists, such as Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, it has always been overshadowed by Mozart's concertos. Yet this music has a value all its own - always focused on essentials, consummate in every respect, melodically inspired, harmonically subtle, and rhythmically magnetizing. Lorenzen's lucid, classical reading ideally matches the inflection of this music, as straightforward as it is sophisticated.

Carl Maria von Weber, the composer of Der Freischütz, was not only one of the greatest pianists of his day, he also wrote an impressive number of works for the piano, including four sonatas, two concertos, and a Konzertstück, all of which were long admired and frequently played. Today his piano music is largely forgotten - unjustly so, as is made abundantly clear by this recording of his stunning First Piano Concerto in C major, op. 11 (1810). Here the creator of Der Freischütz appears in full maturity with a gleeful exuberance, fiery passion, and musicianly aplomb that could still, generations later, have a lasting impact on Debussy, Stravinsky, and Hindemith. A genuine masterpiece of the romantic concerto repertoire, bursting the bounds of convention.