V18 Romantic Pno Cto [Import]

The Korngold Concerto is one as much for orchestra as it is for the Piano. It's primary challenge is formal, as a broad sonata form is used very freely to present many ideas based upon a variant of his "motive of the happy heart". In its way, it is rather forward looking, the harmony pointing towards the 3rd String Quartet and the late Symphony in F#.

The Marx is the gem of this disc. If you only know Marx as a composer of songs (and he was one of the greatest at lieder writing) you will be shocked. The melodic material is memorable, particularly the 2nd subject of the first movement and the primary Rondo theme of the 3rd movement. The piano writing is of the utmost brilliance, yet never seems to be so for its own sake. It just fits. Harmonically, Marx is extremely ingenious working within an expanded tonal framework. If you listen closely you will hear this tonal framework undermined by constantly shifting lines in the middle register, which lends the work a more complex feeling than the title "Romatisches" implies. The concerto is more subdued than the composer's large orchestral canvasses, but still has the characteristically Marx sound: an all-consuming love of nature seemingly conveyed by endlessly imaginative detail in extension of melodic material.

It's really amazing music. Hamelin is very good as always. (Try to hear the Jorge Bolet aircheck for an interesting contrast in the interpretation of the Marx. He is far more poetic, if less fiery.) This cd gets 5 stars because the Marx is one of the absolute greatest of Piano Concerti. You must hear it.

I agree with one of the previous reviewers: the Marx concerto is certainly the weaker of the two on this CD. It almost sounds like a combination of the worst aspects of late romanticism (cheesy orchestration, excessively flashy piano part, rambling structure, etc.). Not my cup of tea. The Korngold concerto is much more satisfying (IMHO). True, its narrative structure is not flawless, but it holds together well enough (like Liszt's Sonata in B minor, it's basically one gigantic sonata-allegro movement, encompassing a "slow movement" and a "scherzo" in the development section). It contains some of Korngold's most interesting harmonic progressions (the initial presentation of the opening theme, for example), and the writing for the left hand is very effective (almost as ingenious as that in Ravel's left hand concerto). There is only one other modern recording of the Korngold concerto (on the Chandos label), but the present recording is hands down much better -- it has more thrust and forward momentum, and certain details like inner lines and splashes of colour (like some of Korngold's characteristic harp arpeggios) come across much more clearly. What's more, Hyperion's sound is far superior to the Chandos recording. If you're interested in the rarely recorded and rarely performed Korngold concerto, this is the CD to get.

The Marx concerto is a slagging, tepid thing, and I'm not sure what would inspire Hamelin to record this one in particular, if simply to display his hyper-virtuosic skills yet again. The Korngold is a great piece, however. I guess Hamelin's Busoni concerto really raised my expectations. I'd love to see Hamelin record Ornstein's piano concerto or some such unknown masterpiece, rather than the banal Marx...