Here are excellent premiere recordings of two of the most ambitious British piano concertos from the second half of the nineteenth century. Hubert Parry’s F sharp major Concerto owes its existence in no small measure to the virtuoso pianist and scholar, Edward Dannreuther (1844-1905). Born in Strasbourg and raised in Cincinnati, Dannreuther studied in Leipzig under Moscheles and made his London debut in April 1863, when he gave the first complete British performance of Chopin’s F minor Concerto. After moving permanently to England in 1871, Dannreuther was responsible for the English premieres of such concertos as the Grieg, and Liszt’s Second, as well as the first concertos of both Tchaikovsky and Scharwenka. The 25-year-old Parry began his studies with Dannreuther in 1873, and, from 1876 onwards, the young composer was able to hear a succession of his instrumental offerings performed within Dannreuther’s own home at Orme Square, Bayswater in London (as part of a regular series of chamber music concerts).
Parry completed his Piano Concerto in August 1879 and it was first performed by Dannreuther under the direction of August Manns the following spring. It is a resourceful, imposing creation, stylistically most obviously indebted to Brahms’s D minor Concerto (there’s also an endearing crib from the Tchaikovsky B flat minor Concerto in the coruscating solo writing towards the very close of the work). The writing is assured, fluent and harmonically often quite daring: within 50 seconds of the piece’s F sharp major opening, for instance, we find ourselves plunged into an amazingly distant G major!
By contrast, Stanford’s First Concerto in G, composed 14 years after its companion here, has an altogether less weighty demeanour. This tuneful, unpretentious and beautifully crafted essay, which Stanford intended to be “of a bright and butterfly nature”, was first performed by soloist Leonard Borwick and Hans Richter in May 1895. (On the programme it was preceded by the Pathetique Symphony and the Tristan Prelude and Liebestod – this was, the composer later complained, a bit “like handing round a vol au vent immediately after two large helpings of Turkey and Corn Beef”.) Though it boasts a duration of 38'10'' as opposed to 34'53'' of the Parry, it actually feels the shorter of the two, so charming are Stanford’s melodic gifts and felicitous sense of colour. The limpid central Adagio molto is especially appealing.
The admirable Piers Lane proves himself a fearlessly secure, profoundly eloquent exponent of all this material, whilst Martyn Brabbins elicits some polished and nicely responsive playing from the BBC Scottish SO (a group in particularly fine fettle these days). Here, then, is another supremely enjoyable instalment in Hyperion’s ongoing Romantic Piano Concerto series. Jeremy Dibble’s extensive, enthusiastic notes could hardly be more informative, and the sound is clean and true.'