The Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 45 – Hiller: Piano Concertos 1, 2 & 3 – Howard Shelley, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Howard Shelley Hyperion

Piano Concerto No 1 in F minor Op 5[24’21]
1
Allegro moderato[10’20]
2
Adagio[5’52]
3
Allegro moderato e con grazia[8’09]
Piano Concerto No 2 in F sharp minor Op 69[19’53]
4
Moderato, ma con energia e con fuoco[8’23]
5
Andante espressivo[6’05]
6
Allegro con fuoco[5’25]
Piano Concerto No 3 in A flat major ‘Concerto espressivo’ Op 170[31’35]
7
Allegro con anima[12’35]
8
Andante quasi adagio[8’04]
9
Allegro con spirito[10’56]

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.