In recent years Field’s concertos have been in the hands of two dedicated compatriots selling at full price. Now along comes Benjamin Frith with a coupling of Nos. 1 and 3 presenting a very formidable challenge at super-budget price.
Both works are played with the effortless fluency we know from his Mendelssohn series – plus all the immediacy and freshness of new discovery. Comparison with Miceal O’Rourke in No. 1 reveals that both artists are acutely responsive to the delicate charm of the Scottish-inspired (’Twas within a mile of Edinboro’ Town) slow movement. But it is Frith who makes me more aware of Field’s teasing delight in the unexpected in the smiling outer movements, to which he brings a wider range of tone, and more piquant accentuation in the last.
In No. 3 there is strong competition from John O’Conor, who as a bonus inserts a slow movement (a lightly accompanied version of the B flat Nocturne for solo piano) as Field himself was wont to do. Mackerras’s bolder baton somehow gives the extended, opening Allegro moderato a stronger sense of direction than we get from the otherwise warmly sympathetic Northern Sinfonia under David Haslam. However, both teams revel in the composer’s surprises of modulation, rhythm and orchestral colouring, while from neither soloist is there a trace of the perfunctory in passagework. I particularly enjoyed Frith’s touch of whimsy in the concluding Tempo di polacca. The recording (in a resonant venue) might be thought overforward and full, but it remains a true bargain at its modest price.'