Customer Reviews

The Romantic Piano Concerto 14 - Litolff

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of my favourites in the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto series. Litolff's music is full of Chopin, Brahms, and other great Romantics. The 4 movement symphonic structure is unique for piano concertos and the music performed, both by the soloist and the orchestra, is top notch. If you like the Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms piano concertos, you will have no problem enjoying these gems.

In the one hundred and thirty years since its composition, Litolff's fourth piano concerto has been recorded in its entirety only twice. One has the feeling that this excellent disc from Hyperion is about to change all that.

Henry Litolff's story is a fascinating one. Born the son of a musician, Henry was, as an adolescent, impressed into working at a piano factory. One day, while demonstrating a piano to a customer, he was "discovered" as a talent by the factory's owner. The owner took Henry under his wing and paid for him to receive formal lessons.

Litolff went on to have four marriages and travel much of Europe as a performer. He composed reams of music--from salon pieces to larger concertos (like the two included here).

Litolff's popular yet well-educated style makes for some pretty enjoyable and accessible listening. In fact, the scherzo of the fourth concerto has been something of a show piece in its own right. It is a lively, almost dancing piece that allows the pianist to demonstrate their adeptness at full speed. I find both concertos to be quite enjoyable. This is what romantic music should be!

I have greatly enjoyed the work that the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has done with Hyperion. This disc is no exception to what is quickly becoming a rule with them (a rule of excellency). The sound is up to Hyperion's typically top notch standard. Andrew Litton has a great grasp on the spirit of Litolff's music and it comes through in his conducting. Peter Donohoe proves himself to be a strong advocate of both pieces.

This disc is well worth hearing. I recommend it.

After listening to these two pieces, it's a mystery why Litolff's music ended up being mostly forgotten. It is well-crafted and needs a sensitive virtuoso for the piano part, for the piano roars in some places, whispers in others, and touches the heart in yet others.

The style of these pieces is quite different from some romantic piano concerti, where the piano is the star and the orchestra merely plays along. In these pieces, the piano and orchestra are equals, and the results are stunning.

I have listened to these pieces many times, and I still enjoy them very much. Hopefully they will find a place in the piano/orchestra programs of orchestras. These pieces need to be heard more often.

Highly recommended!

was driving my car and this piece started to play on my radio. I was knocked out by the interplay between the orchestra and the piano. I've listened to many piano concerti before and I love; Liszt,Rachmaninoff,Beethoven and Bartok to name just a few. I found this composition to rate with any of these composers. I was bouncing with the syncopation of the play between the piano and the orchestra and the slow passages were bringing tears to my eyes.If a piece of music can get a reaction out of a listener, what more could you ask for? I can see why it would not be performed live,if either the pianist or the orchestra miss a beat, it's over! I wish some major pianists would record it, I'm sure it would receive more recognition and also Henry Litoff.

These are two fine piano concertos, and they are very well performed. The fourth is my favorite of the Litolff concertos. It was composed in the 1850s, but I think of Litolff more as a precursor to Rachmaninoff than, say, a contemporary of Schumann. The music is delightful, and Donohoe makes great use of the opportunity to show his talent.

Litolff is not a well known composer, but I assure those who may not have heard his works that they won't be disappointed.

What would you take to a desert isle, with electricity, of course. This is one of, say 10. Litolff never disappoints, no matter how long you listen to him, and Donohoe just floats over the keyboard. This is the type of music that makes one wish they'd continued piano lessons, when young. Add it to your collection and you too can imagine the applause...

Hyperion here provides us with an opportunity at last to hear the at least somewhat famous scherzo of Litolff's fourth Concerto symphonique in context. I don't think anyone expected a masterpiece (and it emphatically isn't) but the whole work is certainly enjoyable, and so is its companion. Litolff himself (1818-1891) was a composer-performer in the tradition of Moscheles, Kalkbrenner and Thalberg with - as is the case for the other three mentioned - one foot in the classical and one in the romantic period. The "concerto symphonique" title is due to the four movement form which sometimes gives the sense of symphonies with piano obbligatos rather than concerti, yet the virtuoso nature of the piano part is rarely in doubt. In fact, in both works the brilliant fireworks-scherzi are the most memorable movements.

Donohoe plays stylishly and isn't fazed by the technical hurdles. He is best, though, in the slower, poetic movements, but the playing has - perhaps - a slight tendency to be a little insensitive and lack a little in lyricism in the faster movements. Orchestral contributions from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton are consistently excellent. So, even though these are by no means major additions to the repertoire, this disc is certain to provide an hour of innocent enjoyment.

The joyously exuberant scherzo from Litolff's fourth piano concerto has been popular for years as a stand-alone virtuoso showpiece. But whatever happened to the other three movements -- not to mention the rest of his concerti? Well, thanks to Peter Donohoe and Andrew Litton, we now know that Litolff's music did not deserve the neglect to which it has unaccountably been relegated. It's a little discouraging to see that there is only one other recording listed by Amazon that plays the fourth concerto in its entirety, and no recordings besides Donohoe's and Littons that give his other concerti the time of day. And that's a shame, because they are infectiously melodic, inventive, remarkably innovative for their time, and they make brilliant use of the interplay between piano and orchestra. Litolff was a virtuoso pianist, and he demands a high level of technical proficiency from the soloist, but he doesn't let the pianist hog center stage, either. And there's much more to his music than the bubbly cheeriness of the famous scherzo; the slow movements are lyrical and haunting, the opening and closing movements passionate and dramatic.

The performance here is of a very high level from all concerned. If I have just one very tiny nitpicky criticism, it's that Donohoe occasionally seems to be the same sort of virtuoso as Marta Argerich: by God, he can go from zero to 60 mph in four seconds flat and he will. If the orchestra has trouble keeping up, that's their problem. Mind you, the performance is very tight and precise, but in a few of the fast runs in the famous scherzo, it did sound as though the orchestra was struggling to keep up. That said, I was very pleased that Donohoe preserved the joyous quality of the scherzo without falling into the trap some pianists do of emphasizing its charm to the point of making it a bit cutesy-poo. I think this is going to become one of my favorite classical (scuse me, ROMANTIC!) albums.

I agree with the sentiment that Hyperion has done an enormous service to classical music by recording the enormous number of rarely heard piano concerti it has issued through its "Romantic Piano Concerto" series. Better yet, they have done so using first rate artists all around. That having been said, the assorted volumes of the series are, as one might expect, a mixed bag. True, I have found some occasional gems (or diamonds in the rough, perhaps), but the term "richly deserved obscurity" comes to mind more often than not when listening to most of the pieces I have purchased.

In the case of the four massive, symphonically constructed Litolff concertos, only the brief scherzo of fourth concerto has found its way into the standard repertoire. When I heard the catchy, adroit confection for the first time, played by no less than Misha Dichter and Neville Marriner on an excellent Phillips release, I had to find out more. I have since put my money where my curiosity is. I have bought both of the Hyperion volumes of Litolff's oeuvre. As far as I am concerned, none of the four in their present form is a fabulous, undiscovered masterpiece that rightly should be displacing Brahms or Tchaikovsky's efforts in this genre. Having said that, they are not badly written, with plentiful, rich melodic material, decent orchestration, and lots of razzle-dazzle for the keyboard soloist. Imagine one of Chopin's concertos, better orchestrated but not as well written for the soloist or as competently developed thematically, and you sort of have the idea. Indeed, I wish some clever, talented modern day composer would take up these concertos and rework them, improving the themes while cutting away the dead wood and formulating some real development to the motifs. He or she would have lots of raw material. The equal of Beethoven or Brahms this music never will be, but polished by the hands of a craftsman you might have something that at least would be worth hearing in place of yet another routine performance of the Chopin, Grieg or even the Tchaikovsky concertos.