One of the best-known portraits of young Clara depicts her at the age of 15, elegantly clad in an off-the-shoulder gown, her face the epitome of relaxed composure, with her left hand resting on a piano keyboard and a copy of the Op 7 Concerto open on the music desk. Howard Shelley and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra offer a compelling account of what would remain the young composer’s most ambitious work. Succinct though the concerto may be, with three linked movements totalling 21 minutes, the technical challenges of the solo part are considerable. Shelley meets these with characteristic aplomb, including an especially nice collaboration with cellist Sue-Ellen Paulsen in the slow movement’s cello obbligato. The alla polacca finale, the concerto’s first-composed and most developed movement, is imbued with the appropriate dash and hauteur.

This 78th instalment of Hyperion’s ‘Romantic Piano Concerto’ series includes what might be considered three addenda to previous releases. Hiller’s rather wooden Konzertstück supplements Vol 45 of the series, consisting of that composer’s three concertos; Vols 41 and 56 are extended by Kalkbrenner’s somewhat less than dreamy Le rêve. Herz’s Rondo de concert, supplementing the composer’s eight concertos in Vols 35, 40 and 66, exudes a period charm and grace in a bouquet of musical and pianistic imagination. It makes a striking pendant to Clara’s Op 7.