Concertos pour piano

Description

Fétis noted with a certain admiration that Berlioz loved his grand Symphonic Concerto in E minor, whose structural ambitions are reflected in the Third Concerto that Howard Shelley records here in a world premiere: the instability of the first movement, which favors the freedoms of a fantasy over the rigor of sonata form, will astonish; its dramatic intent employs a virtuosity without brilliance, while the finale, which gallops like a popular dance, will call upon it with a slight Saint-Saëns touch. The work has many qualities, but not enough to prevent it from being quickly forgotten: could its banal melodic material be the cause? Another Belgian pianist-composer, Peter Benoit, proves to be much more inventive in the descriptive tableaux that make up his opus 43, a desolate and slightly fanciful nocturne around the ruins of the Harelbeke castle, Song of Bards with legendary accents, wild hunt that triggers a rondo full of effective effects—this finally delights the tireless piano of Howard Shelley and makes one eager to learn more about the work of the man whom the Parisian critics called the "Walter Scott of music." (Discophilia - Artalinna.com) (Jean-Charles Hoffelé)