The first of Tellefsen’s two piano concertos, completed in 1848 and first performed in 1852, confirms the composer as a competent contender but, ultimately, an also-ran. It’s a pleasant enough work but not one to return to repeatedly. That said, the first movement has moments of great charm (viz the heart-easing second subject at 4'03" and its companion at 6'58"). One could hardly ask for a more persuasive and beautifully recorded performance than the one it receives from Hubert Rutkowski. Energetically and sensitively supported by the Polish players and their conductor Łukasz Borowicz, it is a more confident and convincing account than the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra under Terje Mikkelsen which, however, includes Tellefsen’s F minor Concerto.

I welcomed Rutkowski’s ‘Piano Music by Pupils of Chopin’ disc (Naxos) in January 2011. As well as solo works by Tellefsen, it included six by the short-lived prodigy Carl Filtsch (1830 45), whom Liszt marvelled at and whose playing was considered by some to surpass Chopin’s. Both works heard here were written before he reached his teens; neither was performed during his lifetime. The main interest in the Overture is that it was penned by one so young. The Konzertstück in B minor is a more substantial work (15'29") composed when Filtsch was 12. Unsurprisingly it is heavily indebted to Chopin, but ends with a long cadenza that includes a fugal treatment of the opening theme.

So no lost masterpieces but valuable in filling in the blanks: until recently Tellefsen and Filtsch have been merely names in biographies of Chopin. Now we have some colour.