Korngold: Piano Concerto in C Sharp for the Left Hand; Marx: Romantic Piano Concerto in E Marc-Andre Hamelin, piano; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Osmo Vanska, conductor (Hyperion)
Hyperion’s series devoted to the Romantic Piano Concerto has unearthed a real winner with Joseph Marx’s piece of the same name. Together with its discmate, the left-hand concerto Erich Wolfgang Korngold wrote for the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein, the all-but-unknown Marx concerto (1918-19) represents the last gasp of the Romantic concerto tradition. It is packed with technical difficulties for the pianist, which partly explains why it has faded from the repertoire. The music is lushly melodic, beautifully crafted and highly enjoyable to listen to for all its echoes of Scriabin, Delius and Richard Strauss. This is its first recording.
With its thick scoring and expansive melodic and harmonic writing, the massive single-movement concerto by Marx’s fellow Austrian Korngold carries Marx’s romanticism into the 20th Century. This is more a symphonic poem for piano and orchestra than a concerto. It carries to new expressive heights the idea of pianist and orchestra locked in a colossal struggle, the keyboard writing slyly creating the illusion that two hands are involved. This is the work of a more intellectual Korngold than the soon-to-be Hollywood-emigre composer of sweet, sentimental film scores.
Hamelin dispatches both concertos with fire-breathing power but also summons a poetic, singing line that well suits the music’s take-no-prisoners romanticism. First-rate orchestral playing and sound to match.
