Bennett: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 5 - Adagio

Albumbeschreibung

What happened to the English composer William Sterndale Bennett? By the time he was 22 he had composed five piano concertos and pages of works for solo piano. Mendelssohn had invited him to perform his works in Germany -- four times. Schumann had called him "a glorious artist, and a beautiful and poetic soul." So what happened to Sterndale Bennett? He got married, and to support his family he gave up composing and got a day job as a piano teacher. But don't cry for Sterndale Bennett: in his career as a teacher, he restored the Royal Academy, rescued the Philharmonic Society, revived the music of Bach, and more or less single-handedly brought native English music out of the doldrums it had been in since the death of Purcell and prepared the way for Parry, Stanford, Elgar, and the whole English musical renaissance. But what happened to the music of Sterndale Bennett? For the most part, it remains mostly unperformed and infrequently recorded. These 1990 Lyrita recordings were then and are still in this 2007 reissue the only extant recordings of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in E flat major and No. 5 in F minor and his Adagio for piano and orchestra. Thankfully, they are so well-played, so dedicated, and above all so convincing that it's hard to imagine how they could be bettered. Malcolm Binns has a nuanced tone, a powerful technique, and apparently no idea that this music is not ranked in the same class as Mozart's and Beethoven's. Conductor Nicholas Braithwaite and the Philharmonia follow Binns with strength and consideration and Lyrita's digital sound, while not perhaps as clear as its stereo sound, is still bright, deep, and full.
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