"Hammond's playing of this attractive work is perfectly judged" — Bernard Hughes
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.