Like his contemporary Max Bruch, Ignaz Brüll lived
in the shadow of Brahms and even though his artistic aims were unlike
those of the greater composer, he has suffered neglect, much of it unwarranted.
The understandable problem with the nineteenth century is that focus
is too often on the giants leaving the smaller fry struggling for a
place. Brüll made Vienna his home from 1850, drawn like so many
to the magnet of the Austrian capital and it was Anton Rubinstein’s
positive opinion of his abilities which decided him on a career in music
rather than take over his father’s business. Although he became a renowned
concert pianist and teacher, it was his opera Das goldene Kreuz (1875)
which launched him as a composer, for it had a sensational success right
from its Berlin premiere. He could use his playing opportunities to
play his music for the instrument, including the concertos featured
here, and like Bruch he refused to compromise his conservative ideas
and move ahead with the changing musical style. Part of the Brahms circle,
he was always the second pianist when Brahms played his latest work
in private to his colleagues.
Both concertos are youthful works, the first written
when he was only fourteen years old in 1860, the second eight years
later, and very assured and remarkable writing it is, the music cheerfully
tuneful with reminiscences of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chopin, despite
some areas of ‘padding’ or predictable moments here and there. The two
movements making up the Konzertstück Op.88 is a later work (1902)
but effectively does not sound as if much has changed in the past forty
years since the first concerto. The piano part in all three works reflects
the virtuosity of Brüll’s pianism, and musical structure is conventionally
logical. Martin Roscoe plays magnificently, with bright tone and crisp
articulation in the cascading passages of the quicker movements, such
as the finale of the first concerto, and expressively in the reflective
slow movements. A slightly too distantly recorded BBCSSO does its job
proficiently under Martyn Brabbins, forming an experienced partnership
in the field of the Hyperion series to which this disc rightly belongs.
Christopher Fifield
See also review by Gerald Fenech
Hyperion
Romantic Piano Concerto Series
Martin Roscoe (piano)