If, like me, you have derived a great deal of pleasure from the six previous issues in Hyperion's enterprising series, ''The Romantic Piano Concerto'', then you will surely want to explore the latest volume which, to my mind, could well be counted amongst the finest, if not the finest, to have appeared so far. Much of the credit must go to the phenomenal playing and superb musicianship of Marc-Andre Hamelin (whose account of the staggeringly difficult Henselt Concerto is quite breathtaking) but plaudits must also go to the imaginative programming and excellent accompanying booklet-notes.
The main work of the disc, both in terms of quality and length, is of course the above-mentioned Henselt F minor Concerto, which, although once an active participant in the repertoire of most top league pianists during the late nineteenth century (at least those sufficiently technically equipped to approach it), dropped out of sight in the early part of this century until revived by those 'champions of the forgotten', Raymond Lewenthal and Michael Ponti. As a concerto it is particularly 'giving' to the listener and very unforgiving to the pianist, as the extreme technical difficulties are concealed in such a way that they become almost transparent to the ear—which probably accounts for its disappearance from the repertoire. Rubinstein once recounted that ''I procured the concerto and his etudes, but after working on them for a few days I realised it was a waste of time, for they were based on an abnormal formation of the hand. In this respect Henselt, like Paganini, was a freak.'' Egon Petri described it as one of the hardest pieces he had ever played. Musically the concerto owes allegiance to Chopin (in the Larghetto) and Thalberg and Mendelssohn in the outer movements, but generally the overall Henseltian style has its own peculiar flavour which I am sure will win many friends through Hamelin's highly persuasive and thoroughly committed performance. The slightly earlier Variations de concert (on a theme from Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable) is admittedly slighter fare but is nevertheless an attractive and enjoyable work which hails from the same stable as Chopin's La ci darem Variations.
The remainder of the disc consists of two 'mini' concertos by Henselt's exact contemporary and fellow 'reticent' Charles-Valentin Alkan (Henselt, like Alkan, gave very few public concerts due to stage-fright that bordered on the pathological). The two early Concerti da camera (the only surviving concertante pieces by Alkan) are not, it has to be said, 'major' Alkan works, but they are original in invention and full of melodic appeal, with more than a hint or two of the Alkan of later years. Hamelin, who has already proved himself a formidable Alkan exponent with his outstanding recording of the Concerto for solo piano (Music & Arts, 8/93), delivers them with astonishing dexterity and panache and, as in the Henselt pieces, he is given equally committed support from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Martyn Brabbins. A thoroughly enjoyable disc, well worth exploring!'