Back in 1988 - having heard a recording by Neeme
Järvi of this unknown and unprinted work - I conducted the
first English performance of Stenhammar’s first symphony on
the South Bank - and with a youthful Tasmin Little in her first
Sibelius concerto. It struck me as wonderfully Brucknerian from
its six-horn start.
Stenhammar was an iconic figure in Sweden’s musical history
from the 1890s until his death. The first piano concerto is
his Op.1 written in his early twenties, and inevitably showing
influences upon its musical language. There’s a strong dose
of Brahms laced with Chopin or Saint-Saëns in lighter passages.
Its technical demands show how good a pianist he was, though
by no means was he a circus trick virtuoso. It is a substantial
(long) work in four movements (so too was Brahms’s second),
only the infectiously skittish, Mendelssohnian scherzo disproportionately
shorter than the rest of the work. I could not, nor wanted to,
resist the temptation to hear it again having listened through
the whole disc. The slow movement is a revelation, a beautifully
lyrical essay with first signs of its Nordic origin laid out
at the start in a French horn solo, the very end a magical blend
of piano and the quietest controlled high and accurate string
playing you’ll get to hear. The finale is by no means an anti-climax,
Stenhammar has more to say in a kaleidoscope of moods ranging
from scherzo-like passages (Carnival of the Animals at
one point) to a beautifully simple and rather sad song of childhood
love which ends in death (a song of his own as Op.8 No.1).
The second concerto is a more dramatic, even troubled work dating
from 1909 by which time Stenhammar was an established conductor.
By now Sibelius was a serious force to be reckoned with, and
the already self-effacing Swede was in awe of the Finn’s second
symphony, causing him to have self-doubts, even withdrawing
a symphony. In this work we have an extraordinary tug of war
between soloist and orchestra in the matter of key, a struggle
which persists through the first two (again of four movements
but presented as two conjoined pairs. The Adagio is clearly
the music of a man who by now has lived and to a certain extent
suffered, though Stenhammar was by now three years into his
sixteen-year tenure as music director in Gothenburg from 1906
to 1922. Perhaps this explains the more joyous mood of the finale
in whose key (D major) both forces are happily reconciled, with
a protracted coda which will not fail to thrill.
Conductor Andrew Manze - whose booklet essay gives a fascinating
account of how the original version of the first concerto came
to be rediscovered in the 1980s - makes an ideally sympathetic
partnership with pianist Seta Tanyel, achieving impeccable ensemble.
Both are clearly devotees of this music, with Tanyel in full
command of her formidable technique and making it all sound
so easy, her fast passage work amazing in its clarity, while
meeting head-on Stenhammar’s demands for fistfuls of notes in
each hand. Manze has convincing control of his Helsingborg forces
and, apart from a moment in the woodwinds at the end of the
scherzo in the first concerto, draws stylish playing from them
in all departments. The sound is pin-point accurate in its balance,
thanks to that fine recording engineer Sean Lewis. This is highly
engaging music, with both concertos worthy of a place in the
concert hall, and this disc will, I hope, help the cause. It
is an outstanding achievement which more than meets Hyperion’s
demandingly high standards, and which finds me wanting to extend
my Stenhammar conducting repertoire beyond that revelatory First
Symphony twenty-two years ago.
Christopher Fifield
see also review by Rob
Barnett
Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto review page
Seta Tanyel (piano) 
