Rontgen: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 4
Label: CPO Catalog: 777398-2 Format: CD KIRSCHNEREIT; NDR RADIOPHILHARMONIE; PORCELIJNJulius Roentgen not only was an outstanding pianist but also wrote impressive piano concertos of his own. He composed his second piano concerto during the summer of 1879, one of the happiest times of his life. Its premiere in Leipzig on 27 October 1881 was a success; Roentgen was the soloist, and his father Engelbert, the Gewandhaus Orchestra’s assistant concertmaster, was the conductor. This work is clearly obliged to German romanticism, and in it Leipzig classicism creates surprises by combining the lighter form of a Mendelssohn and the somewhat weightier form of a Schumann or Brahms. In contrast, reminiscences of Brahms or Beethoven, whom Roentgen greatly admired, are hardly heard at all in his fourth piano concerto. On 11 February 1907 he confided to his friend Edvard Grieg that his own score was »infamously difficult« – which is not an exaggeration and applies above all to the more animated passages in the last movement. Perhaps this is why not a single pianist after 1907 took the effort to occupy himself with Roentgen’s fourth concerto, and so we are happy that Matthias Kirschnereit has now accomplished this task with bravura for cpo. Price: $25.98 |