Reviews for British Piano Concertos

It's been an age (55 years to be precise) since the last recording of Walton's still underrated Sinfonia concertante in its 1943 revision (featuring Peter Katin and the LSO under the composer - Lyrita, 6/71, 7/92), so a hearty welcome to Clare Hammond's scrupulously prepared alliance with George Vass and the BBC SO. Conceived in 1925 as a ballet score for Diaghilev (who didn't like it), the piece was reworked during 1926-27 and overhauled again 16 years later ('revivified the Sin. Con. chiefly by eliminating the pfte', noted the composer). There are indeed fewer opportunities for solo display than before - and the opulent original scoring has also been pared back - but in a performance as judiciously integrated as the present stylish offering it leaves a thoroughly convincing impression nonetheless. Granted, Kenneth Wilkinson's vintage Walthamstow sound still packs a punch, but this superbly realistic BIS newcomer emerges as an altogether more involving, less sedate affair than its analogue rival and is demonstrably preferable.

Commissioned by the Austrian-American pianist Paul Wittgenstein (1887-1961), Britten's dazzlingly inventive Diversions for piano (left-hand) and orchestra (written in Maine during the summer and autumn of 1940) makes quite a splash here. Stereo successors to Julius Katchen's pioneering July 1954 recording for Decca with Britten conducting the LSO have never been exactly thick on the ground, but Peter Donohoe (Warner, 11/91), Leon Fleisher (Sony, 4/93) and Steven Osborne (Hyperion, 10/08) all give of their formidable best, and to their number must now be added Clare Hammond, who locates a melting poetry and depth of expression in Variations 5 ('Chant'), 6 ('Nocturne') and 10 ('Adagio'), while not missing out on the virtuosic fireworks of those two linked toccatas that form Var 9 as well as the 'Tarantella' finale.

A comparably selfless dedication, nourishing intellect and unfailingly questing spirit inform the illuminating performance of Tippett's soaringly lyrical and luminously textured Piano Concerto (1953-33), written in the wake of his first opera, The Midsummer Marriage. Intensely concentrated and memorable articulate, Hammond is comprehensively equipped to tackle this music's formidable technical challenges, her exquisitely variegated tonal palette, deft touch and quiet authority truly things of wonder. In all of this Vass and the BBC SO play their full part (the expansive opening movement in particular is unerring in its sense of organic growth), resulting in a wholly immersive, keenly responsive display that I feel confident will yield lasting satisfaction.

In short, if the programme appeals - and it certainly should! - don't hesitate.

Here’s an interesting prospect: three British (sort of) piano concertos, each from a different 20th-century decade, each offering different escape routes from those epic 19th-century boxing matches between a piano virtuoso and the orchestra. The unifying factor is the crisp artistry of Clare Hammond, whether she’s navigating the florid tendrils creeping over Tippett’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra or pecking out the suggestive phrases that propel Britten’s Diversions using only the fingers of her left hand.   The album begins with Walton’s early Sinfonia Concertante, heard in its 1943 revision, not his most compelling piece, with the piano sometimes reduced to guest appearances in a tapestry that never quite knits together. Hammond and orchestra (the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by George Vass) secure bigger rewards in the chiselled exchanges of the Britten, written for the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein. Tippett’s hothouse effusions suit them too, even if the orchestra at times needs just a little more virility to match Hammond’s athletic flair.

Flora Willson: But we're going to start with a different disc. This is a disc of 20th-century piano works with orchestra by Britten, Tippett, and Walton. You might think, okay, so what's unexpected about that? But these are not big-hitting, well-known pieces of repertory. We've got Britten's Diversions for the piano left hand and orchestra. That's one of the Paul Wittgenstein pieces that he commissioned. That was the great pianist who lost his right arm in World War I fighting. The Tippett Concerto for piano and orchestra that was commissioned by the CBSO in the 1950s. But we're actually going to hear part of Walton's Sinfonia Concertante, not a well-known work.

Andrew McGregor: It's not well known, but it's got a really convoluted history, hasn't it? Because this is the last revision from 1943, isn't it? And so, big orchestra. So, obbligato piano, but it didn't sound like this.

FW: It did not, no. This started life as a ballet score. It was actually written speculatively by Walton for Diaghilev, no less, and his Ballets Russes in the 1920s. Walton was only in his mid-twenties himself, and Diaghilev politely declined and said, you know, have another go when you're a little bit older, young man. Funnily enough, Walton did have other goes. He wrote more ballet scores, this time choreographed by Frederick Ashton, the great British choreographer, but as far as the Sinfonia Concertante was concerned, Walton wasn't put off. He turned it first into a concert work, which was effectively a piano concerto, and then he returned to it a good 15 years after that world premiere and actually reduced the prominence of the piano. He effectively sort of stopped it being a piano concerto and turned it more into a symphony with piano. And the pianist, Clare Hammond, has recorded this with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Vass. And we're going to listen to the third movement. This is an Allegro Vivo.

[Walton - Sinfonia Concertante, m. 3]

AM: The end of William Walton's Sinfonia Concertante, originally a ballet score from 1927, eventually turned into that symphony with piano obbligato, as Walton called it. And that's the new recording from pianist Clare Hammond with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by George Vass. Flora. I was surprised to see how much of a rarity this still is on record. I mean, there are very few recordings, two of them conducted by Walton himself.

FW: Yes, I think this is really significant that we've actually got another modern recording here, and it's so persuasive. I mean, you hear the relationship between the piano and the orchestra. and the movement we've just heard. The piano is almost like another percussion instrument, at times, more tuned percussion alongside the others that Walton's got there. It's such a musical dialogue, both in terms of how Walton has written this later version of the piece, but also the way Hammond plays it. She's, you know, so utterly at ease stepping in and out of the spotlight. You know those moments of virtuosic, really flashy finger work; she's absolutely got them in her fingers.

AM: I jotted down that she makes it seem quite straightforward, but in a lovely way.

FW: Exactly, it sounds easy, but then she's also willing to recede to be among the kind of rank and file of all the musicians of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

AM: So she gets what he meant because it is that with piano obbligato, it's not a concerto, it’s a conversation.

FW: Well exactly. And I think the words piano concerto immediately set off, since the 19th century, a series of associations for us about, you know, what a soloist is, what a soloist should do, and especially there's something about pianos, you know, you're playing a big instrument placed in front of an orchestra. That too has a series of associations. And yet Hammond and the BBC Symphony here are just willing to kind of gently dismantle some of that, all in the service of this really, I'm going to say, fun music. It's got such spirit It really carries you along.

AM: It's really entertaining. What about the Tippett Piano Concerto though, just briefly, because, well, it's got a reputation of being sort of almost unplayable, although Stephen Osborne, or John Ogden, or even Lang Lang would disagree.

FW: Well, quite. I think, you know, the fact that the pianist originally booked to give its premiere declared it unplayable and walked out of rehearsals, that is meaningful, even though some have proved it definitely playable ever since. You know, I don't think you'd get Hammond pulling something like that. Put it this way. It's a really remarkable recording. Again, that real apparent ease. The Tippett Concerto, I mean, it takes in really ethereal glistening of the first movement. There's some thunderous piano playing. I mean, there's nothing gentle about the way Hammond's going here. But then you get some of, you know, Tippett's classic groove as well. It's a great recording.

AM: It is. Concertante pieces by Walton, Tippett, and Britten from Clare Hammond and the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Vass, released yesterday on BIS. It's a hybrid SACD. And there'll be music by Sir Michael Tippett at the end of Record Review this afternoon. A new concert recording of his oratorio A Child of Our Time. That's at about ten to four. And I think you're going to be able to hear Clare Hammond's complete recording of the Tippett in Radio 3's Classical Live this Wednesday afternoon from one o'clock.

This enterprising and well-filled programme of works for piano and orchestra is self-recommending for its contents almost as much as it is for the excellence of its soloist. You can always have confidence in Clare Hammond as a performer of whatever she turns her hands to, and so I was never going to turn down an offer to hear this release.

Hammond’s own booklet notes on these works are concise and informative, and she points out that William Walton’s Sinfonia Concertante has only been recorded twice previously in its 1943 revised version, both times with the composer conducting. Walton’s fine but softer-edged recording on with Peter Katin from 1970 can be found on the Lyrita label (review), and Phyllis Sellick and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1945 is of course in glorious mono but was produced by Walter Legge and is surprisingly good for its age if you can find it. Another recording with Peter Donohoe on Naxos (review) is of the 1927 original and it is intriguing to compare similarities and differences between the two. This work was originally intended as music for ballet, and while it has plenty of Walton fingerprints in its character, the early influence of contemporaries such as Stravinsky and Poulenc, and of impressionist orchestrators such as Ravel and Debussy can all be heard. There is romance in the air everywhere especially in the gorgeous slow second movement, though Walton’s firm fist is never entirely absent, and there is plenty of that wit and humour in the finale to go along with more troubling elements perhaps associated with the movement’s original dedicatee, Sacheverell Sitwell.

Benjamin Britten’s Diversions was written for the left-handed pianist Paul Wittgenstein, and the composer is quoted as stating that in “no place in [Diversions] did I attempt to imitate a two-handed piano technique”, reinforced by Hammond’s comment that “he did not seek to conceal the soloist’s one-handedness, but revelled in it.” There is plenty of virtuoso writing in this work, but too much of this was allocated to the orchestra in Wittgenstein’s opinion, and so he proceeded to muck about with the score to ‘improve’ both the solo part and some of the orchestration, with Britten’s original only to be restored in the 1950s. This is an excellent performance of another rarely heard work, full of contrasts as you might expect in a theme and eleven variations, and lighter in touch than can sometimes be the case with this composer. There are few enough recordings of this around, but it certainly stands comparison with Steven Osbourne’s excellent performance with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra on Hyperion CDA67625. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and soloist are more forward in terms of sonic perspective and as a result perhaps a touch less atmospheric in the quieter variations, but Osbourne’s piano is twangier in its sound so it’s one more case of swings and roundabouts and no clear winner either way.

Michael Tippett’s Piano Concerto is always a treat, and I still treasure Steven Osborne’s recording on the Hyperion label (review), which is something of a reference when it comes to Tippett’s piano works in general. Osborne is a touch more compact than Hammond when it comes to timings, with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra sounding clean and disciplined. The BIS recording picks out instrumental solos more closely, emphasising the chamber-music qualities of certain passages in the first movement, but with the piano solo also closer in the balance those grandly gestural shifts in perspective have a different effect. The function of the piano as an orchestral continuo, adding colour and magical sparkle is lost somewhat, and while it’s good to hear most of Clare Hammond’s notes, half a metre or so of extra distance between us and the piano might have made the difference. The central Molto lento e tranquillo is nicely done, but the lower strings are indistinct and again the piano’s riffs are more solo than concerto, which is a shame. The final Vivace is suitably spectacular and rhythmically dynamic, with a potent eloquence in those elongated phrases through perhaps lacking some of that driving edge-of-the-seat impetus this movement can have. All of these are relatively minor gripes and on its own terms this is most emphatically a fine recording that will by no means disappoint.

Whatever the competition, this is a must-have programme for seekers of mostly neglected and rarely performed mid-20th century British repertoire. With regard to sound quality, this is released on one of BIS’s multi-layered SACD discs where I had to make do with a WAV file download. This sounds good enough in conventional stereo but the recording will no doubt benefit from the full SACD surround or stereo treatment, and any comments I have concerning balance and other details should be read with this in mind.

Clare Hammond’s new recording with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and George Vass invites us into a world of invention, warmth, and wit brought into focus by a pianist whose hallmark is clarity without coldness. Pianist Clare Hammond has collaborated with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor George Vass to offer a thought-provoking contrast of three mid-twentieth-century works for piano and orchestra written within thirty years of each other.

In the sleeve notes, Clare Hammond describes recording this album with Vass and the BBC Symphony Orchestra as an immensely fulfilling experience. Listening, it’s hard not to hear that evident in her playing. Her sound carries a distinctive crispness — even in the most lyrical passages — that sets her apart from many amongst her generation. There’s a reassuring fastidiousness in the placing of every note. The second-movement solo line in Walton’s Sinfonia Concertante, delicately shadowed by the flutes, is a striking example: poised, lucid, and unshowy. Yet the clarity comes with a self-assured warmth. The movement’s swift harmonic shifts and intricately woven textures grow from careful decision-making — the kind of detail in music-making that acts as a powerful trigger for the imaginative listener. The outer movements are textbook Walton, the concluding finale decorated with dazzling brass and an enveloping string sound from the BBC Symphony Orchestra that could, if you shut your eyes for a moment, easily sweep you off your feet. The material for keyboard may not have the allure it does in the first two movements — it’s the rhythm that does a lot of the heavy lifting here — but Hammond’s execution remains characteristically sharp and dry, taut percussion giving the final bars a playful, throwaway wink.

Britten’s Diversions are essentially a set of theme and variations, though disguised as a series of evocative vignettes. Written in 1941 for left-handed pianist Paul Wittgenstein, when the composer was living in the US during the Second World War, the work carries a glorious sense of youthful energy. The second-movement Romance in particular — a simple, slightly awkward melodic idea confidently underpinned by dry yet committed strings — captures the early Britten sound. In the March that follows, Clare Hammond creates a playful distraction from the thunderous, faintly pompous orchestral accompaniment. The piano articulation in the Arabesque is carefully spun gold, while the Badinerie bubbles along with gurgling wit. The virtuosity and the ensemble evident in the Toccata build the tension nicely before the orchestra takes on the lead in material with more than a whiff of Copland about it.

The path to premiering Tippett’s Piano Concerto — the third work on this album — was far from straightforward. Originally intended for pianist Noel Mewton-Wood, who died in December 1953, the work was later offered to Julius Katchen, who famously walked out of rehearsals claiming it was unplayable.

Seventy-five years later, that claim feels hard to fathom when hearing Hammond and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in this performance. Her recording places her firmly within a distinguished line of British pianists who have championed the work — Howard Shelley, John Ogdon, Benjamin Frith, and Steven Osborne among them. This feels the richest of the three concertos on the album: a supple blend of wind and brass, warm strings, and nimble shifts of style, mood, and colour from the piano. The lyrical second movement glows with shimmering luminosity, its harmonies shifting purposefully beneath an undercurrent of quiet urgency. Hammond’s clarity ensures it never slips into sentimentality, maintaining a razor-sharp edge within an overarching legato line. The closing Vivace has a sprightly energy that’s finely judged — never overstated — its gentle introspection giving way to a buoyant dance that brings the work to a joyously resolute close. A defining album for Clare Hammond, which inevitably demands the question: what next?

I really liked this programme of neglected British piano concertos by the always excellent pianist Clare Hammond, accompanied by conductor George Vass, himself committed to the cause of promoting British music over many years. Britten’s one-handed Diversions, written for Paul Wittgenstein, and Walton’s Sinfonia Concertante are both full of youthful vivacity, although both have troubled histories.

Best known by far is Michael Tippett’s Piano Concerto, a top-three in my Tippett favourites list, alongside the Fantasia on a Theme by Corelli and the Second String Quartet. I observed recently in this column how Tippett is one of the most uneven of composers, but when he’s on song I find him irresistible. The concerto is big-boned, with the heft of a large construction, and designed to explore the piano’s “poetic capabilities”, in which it really succeeds. Hammond paces her passages of build-up so the climaxes really hit and her playing brings out the melodic lines sometimes hidden in a barrage of notes. The orchestration is often quite dense (a bit of a Tippett weakness) but Vass keeps it light, the BBC Symphony Orchestra revelling in the sparser woodwind solos, but also finding a nobility in the brass fanfares. The second movement is labyrinthine and a touch self-important, although Hammond negotiates her way through its thickets with a clear eye. But it’s in the last movement that everything comes together: spirited pianism, orchestral sparkle and the dancing high spirits that characterised Tippett’s best music from the early 50s.

The Walton Sinfonia Concertante that opens the album has an interesting backstory. Written as a ballet score for Diaghilev in 1926, dismissively spurned by the great impresario. Reworked as a concert piece in 1928 and then into its final form in 1943, Walton was clear it was not a concerto, but a symphony “with piano obbligato”. To me it works as a concerto, with dialogue between piano and orchestra, and it has the vivacity and wit of Walton’s early style, with a serious and thoughtful second movement, as in the Tippett. As Hammond notes in her liner notes, Walton’s downplaying of the piano’s role makes this a somewhat unappealing prospect for pianists, but she does a great job of advocacy, her playing dynamic and, in the slow movement, inward to the right degree.

The other piece is Britten’s one-hand concerto Diversions, on which Hammond is an expert, having written her doctoral thesis about it. The chequered history here consists of the dedicatee Paul Wittgenstein making significant changes to Britten’s music in his performances, to the composer’s distress. The piece is a set of variations, each strongly characterised, the piano collaborating with the orchestra, rather than being in heroic combat. Hammond’s playing of this attractive work is perfectly judged and accompanied sympathetically by Vass and the BBCSO, with the “Nocturne” a particular highlight.