HUMMEL: Piano Concertos vol. 1

Budapest Chamber Orchestra, Chang, Hae Won, Pal, Tamas

8.550837

In 1828 Hummel published his study of pianoforte performance technique, a work that enjoyed immediate success, and has proved a valuable source for our knowledge of contemporary performance practice. Towards the end of his life his brilliance as player diminished, and this, after all, was the age of Liszt and a new school of piano virtuosity. Hummel represented, rather, a continuation of the classical style of playing of his teacher, Mozart. As a composer he seems to extend that style into the age of Chopin. • The Piano Concerto in A Minor, Opus 85, was written in Vienna probably in 1816 and published in 1821. The work is skilfully orchestrated, marked by happy melodic invention, with tireless demands on the brilliance of the soloist, reminding us at times of Hummels contemporary Beethoven, with whom he enjoyed a varying relationship. Hummel, of course, offers a more predictable concerto, leading to a final sparkling conclusion. • The Piano Concerto in B Minor, Opus 89, was written in 1819, after Hummel’s appointment to Weimar, following a brief spell as Kapellmeister at Stuttgart, and published in Leipzig two years later. It opens with the ominous accompaniment of timpani and again presents in its three movements startling demands on the skill of the soloist, within a musical idiom that is always felicitous and never vapid.

CD x 1

Naxos

11/09/1995

730099583725