HILLER : Piano Concerto No 1, Op 5 (First Recording) • Piano Concerto No 2, Op 69 • Piano Concerto No 3, Op 170 (First Recording) (Howard Shelley · Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra) (2008) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 45 | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

The Romantic Piano Concerto series continues to bring undiscovered works to the listening public, performed by the greatest piano virtuosos of today. The composer Hiller was admired by Schumann, who described him as the exemplar of ‘how to combine orchestra and piano in brilliant fashion’. One of the most imposing musical personalities of the nineteenth century, close friends with the likes of Rossini, Liszt, Berlioz and particularly Mendelssohn, Hiller was nevertheless largely forgotten less than twenty years after his death as musical fashion changed. The Second Concerto is a genuine forgotten masterpiece, and Hyperion has been looking for the right opportunity to record it for many years. The First and Third concertos are both first recordings, and indeed the Third was never published. A combination of the appealing and the unknown makes this a classic RPC disc. Howard Shelley is a veteran of the Romantic Piano Concerto series. He conducts the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra here from the piano. Hyperion

Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885)
Piano Concerto No 1 In F Minor Op 5     (24:22)

Piano Concerto No 2 In F Sharp Minor Op 69     (19:55)

Piano Concerto No 3 In A Flat Major 'Concerto Espressivo' Op 170     (31:39)

Credits :
Orchestra – Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
Piano, Conductor – Howard Shelley

CLARA SCHUMANN : Piano Concerto in A minor ♦ HILLER : Konzertstück ♦ HERZ : Rondo de Concert ♦ KALKNEBRER : Le revê (Howard Shelley · Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra) (2019) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 78 | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

You might be surprised, given the growing interest in Clara Schumann's music, that Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series did not include her sole piano concerto before the 78th volume. In fact, the work is not often played; it is a student work, a product of the composer's 14th year, and it's rather uneven, with a finale that's longer than the first two movements put together. Clara accepted help on the orchestration from her boarder, not yet husband, Robert Schumann. But it thus marks the beginning of their creative partnership, and it's interesting in other ways as well. Pianist Howard Shelley, who also conducts the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, makes the best possible case for it by placing it in a program featuring virtuoso music by Ferdinand Hiller, Henri Herz, and Friedrich Kalkbrenner -- exactly the music Schumann would have heard in her daily piano lessons. Some of this turns out to be well worth retrieval from the scrap heap of history: sample Kalkbrenner's Le rêve, Op. 113, with its unabashedly splashy march conclusion. But what strikes one about the young Clara's concerto is that she took little from this music, even though she clearly already had the chops to play it. Instead she is reaching for large scope and unusual key relationships, even if it takes her until the finale to really hit her target. Shelley and his Tasmanians continue their impressive record of clean, differentiated performances of a great variety of Romantic works, and that variety is the key point here. James Manheim  
Tracklist :
Piano Concerto In A Minor, Op. 7 (20:50)
Composed By – Clara Schumann

Konzertstück, Op. 113 (20:51)
Composed By – Ferdinand Hiller

Rondo de Concert, Op. 27 (11:25)
Composed By – Henri Herz

Le Rêve, Op. 113 (10:43)
Composed By – Friedrich Kalkbrenner
Credits :
Orchestra – Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra
Piano, Conductor – Howard Shelley