It’s a while since
I’ve heard anything from the Hyperion
Romantic Piano Concerto series,
so it’s been interesting to catch up
with what they’ve recently been uncovering
from the byways of musical history.
Here, they’ve set out to show that there’s
more to Norwegian piano concertos than
the Grieg. Some specialist pianophiles
will possibly have come across the Sinding
concerto, as it’s had a couple of decent
recordings in the past, including one
on Vox’s – wait for it – Romantic
Piano Concerto series, where stalwarts
like Michael Ponti and Roland Keller
tackled most of the repertoire. There
has also been a much more up-to-date
Norwegian recording coupled with the
Symphony in D minor, which appears to
have been deleted, so even the better
known of these two pieces is likely
to be really welcomed in this new performance.
As for the Alnaes, I have to confess
complete ignorance of him, so this one
really was a voyage of discovery for
me, and, I suspect, for many others.
So what of the quality
of the music on offer? Well, as you
would expect of big romantic concertos
from this period, there are tunes aplenty,
rich orchestration and bags of bravura
fireworks from the soloist. Structurally
they are pretty safe, keeping within
the three movement norm, though the
Sinding does use a more interesting
Liszt-like cyclic form where the main
theme undergoes metamorphic transformations.
There are lots of audible influences,
chief among them Wagner, which is not
really surprising given that both composers
finished their composition studies in
Leipzig. There’s also Tchaikovsky and
Rachmaninov, particularly in the Alnaes,
which is a very attractive piece. The
sleeve writer quotes a contemporary
who describes Alnaes as ‘a healthy and
true musician, keeping both feet on
the ground and remaining firmly within
a style accessible to his listeners’.
Fair enough, and it’s beautifully scored,
as for instance in the delectable passage
for piano and cello at 6:16 into the
first movement. The slow movement is
perhaps not quite as tragic as the note
writer suggests, and it has a glorious
main melody. The finale’s drum roll
opening immediately recalls Grieg, which
might also be inevitable, but the light,
waltz character is distinctly Viennese-flavoured.
The big tune at 2:02 is more than reminiscent
of variation 18 of Rachmaninov’s Paganini
Rhapsody, so much so that one is
brought up short to realize that the
Russian’s piece came much later. The
superbly committed playing of Hyperion
regular Piers Lane definitely helps
the work’s cause, as does Andrew Litton’s
controlled yet vital accompaniment.
Sinding is pretty well
known to the wider public purely for
his piano miniature Rustle of
Spring, so it’s always welcome
in these cases to hear the ‘big’ works
of such composers. Again Wagner, and
this time Liszt, feature more overtly
than the nationalism of Grieg and the
note writer rightly mentions critics
over the years drawing attention to
the main theme’s similarity to a motif
in Wagner’s Götterdämmerung,
though it really doesn’t sound like
deliberate cribbing. There is an attractive
slow movement and rousing finale. If
I have a complaint it concerns the rather
thick scoring of the outer movements
and the development of the material,
which is simply less memorable than
it perhaps might be in other hands.
Again, the strong performance really
helps to keep these doubts at bay and
let us simply wallow in the sheer romantic
splendour of it all. Hyperion’s engineers
have captured the proceedings in warmly
resplendent sound, fully in keeping
with the music. Lovers of this type
of repertoire can buy with confidence,
particularly for the Alnaes, here getting
its premiere recording.
Tony Haywood
Piers Lane (piano) 
