Lush as lush can be – that’s the Joseph Marx Romantisches Klavierkonzert. It’s all the most wildly romantic concertos you can think of rolled into one huge pianistic feast. Without sounding too much like the wine expert Jilly Goolden, it’s early Scriabin, it’s Korngold (particularly in the ravishing slow movement), it’s Debussy (I’m thinking of the Fantasie for piano and orchestra here), it’s Delius, it could even at times be the grandaddy of all those 1930s and 1940s quasi-piano concerto film scores. From the very first bar you know why Joseph Marx (1882-1964) gave the concerto the epithet Romantic.
Though by no means a profound piece, it’s a delight to listen to and a work of exceptional craftsmanship also. Its pianistic difficulties are legion and this could well be the reason for the work’s neglect since the 1920s. Jorge Bolet had it in his repertoire but this is the first commercial recording of the piece. As ever Marc-Andre Hamelin delivers the music with consummate ease.
After a similar period of neglect Korngold’s left-hand Piano Concerto is making a remarkable comeback on disc. Unlike many of the pieces composed for Paul Wittgenstein after he lost an arm in the First World War, this one actually makes a virtue out of all the inevitable spread-chords trickery required when writing for one hand. Listening to the Concerto afresh it struck me how incredibly difficult it would be to play it with both hands and still make it sound the way the composer intended – perhaps this was why Wittgenstein enjoyed playing it so much. Whatever, it’s a splendid work that thoroughly deserves its current revival. Its gladiatorial solo part certainly emphasizes the ‘struggle’ inherent in the concerto form, but it is certainly not a concerto in the traditional sense, more, as Brendan Carroll suggests in the booklet-notes, a symphonic poem for piano and orchestra.
Hamelin’s main rival here is a fine account by Howard Shelley and Matthias Bamert on Chandos. Shelley’s approach is, overall, more luxuriant perhaps, but Hamelin’s reading has plenty of poetry as well and is allied to tremendous power and authority. I’m sure I will vacillate between these two performances, but for now Hamelin just gets my recommendation. Korngold fans will want both, and of course there’s the marvellous Marx Concerto to get acquainted with. An inspired coupling. Good recorded sound, and superb accompaniment from the BBC Scottish SO under Osmo Vanska.'