The Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto series

Volume 27: Saint-Saëns complete works for Piano and Orchestra

Of the myriad Piano Concertos composed in the second half of the 19th century all but a handful are forgotten. The survivors are played with a regularity that borders on the monotonous: pianists,

promoters and record companies play it safe and opt for the familiar. Even a masterpiece can become an unwelcome guest, especially when subjected to an unremarkable outing by yet another indifferent player, as happens so frequently today. How refreshing, then, to have the dust brushed off … forgotten specimens of 19th century piano concertos and rendered clean and polished for

inspection again. Refreshing and rewarding, for they are exactly the sort of pieces that make one wonder why we are forced to live off such a limited concerto diet. How is it that such appealing,

well-crafted, imaginative works with their high spirits and luscious tunes could have vanished from the repertoire? … It is time for those who promote and play piano music to be more adventurous

and imaginative in their programming.” © 1991 Jeremy Nicholas

Charles Camille Saint-Saëns Paris, October 3, 1835

Algiers, Algeria / colonial France then, December 16, 1921

Disc 1 Piano Concerto no. 1 in D major, op. 17 (1858)

I. Andante - Allegro assai [11:37] II. Andante sostenuto, quasi adagio [8:35] - III. Allegro con fuoco [6:25]

Piano Concerto no. 2 in G minor , op. 22 (1868) I. Andante sostenuto [10:08]

II. Allegro scherzando [5:23] - III. Presto [6:09] Piano Concerto no. 3 in G minor , op. 22 (1869)

I. Moderato assai - Più mosso (Allegro maestoso) [12:26] II. Andante [6:16] - III. Allegro non troppo [7:06]

Wedding Cake, op. 76 (1886) Valse-Caprice for piano and strings [5:58]

Disc 2 Piano Concerto no. 4 in C minor, op. 44 (1875)

I. Allegro moderato [11:18] - II. Allegro vivace [13:24] Piano Concerto no. 5 in F major, op. 103 (1896)

I. Allegro animato [10:11] II. Andante - Allegretto tranquillo [11:07] - III. Molto allegro [5:49] Rapsodie d’Auvergne, for piano and orchestra op. 73 (1884) [9:02] Allegro Appassionato, for piano and orchestra op. 70 (1884) [5:11]

Africa, Fantasie for piano and orchestra op. 89 (1889-91) [9:47]

Stephen Hough, piano City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Sakari Oramo

Recorded in Symphony Hall, Birmingham on 22-24 January and 6-8 September 2000; And in Warwick, Arts Centre on 3 July 2001 (Concerto No. 3)

Recording engineers, Tony Faulkner and Mike Clements. Recording producer, Andrew Keener © 2001 Hyperion Records Ltd. CDA67331/2

Cast your eye over the listings of these concertos in the classical catalogue and you’ll find half a

column of versions of No. 2, including three by Rubinstein and a celebrated live recording by Gilels – while representation of the other four is so sparse as to suggest their days are over. No. 4, once the rival to No. 2 in popularity, does have Cortot’s glorious recording of 1935 to speak for it, but when

do you ever hear it in concerts now? Richter’s name pops up in No. 5, in a 1952 account with Kondrashin and a Moscow youth orchestra. As to No. 1 and No. 3, they have faded almost to

vanishing point. (…) Enough background: forward Stephen Hough, whose arrival is timely. His set is well recorded and presented, and conductor and orchestra are with him in a proper collaboration.

It includes moreover the four shorter solo pieces with orchestra, which are characteristically pleasing compositions in a genre the composer liked to cultivate and of which Africa and the

Rhapsodie d’Auvergne are especially worth having. If Saint-Saëns’s idiom once answered (and maybe still does) to qualities fundamental to the French musical character, it must straight away be said that Hough sounds the complete insider. My first impression of coolness and a slight reserve

was soon banished by a recognition that his voice is ideally pitched. He commands the range of the big statements, whatever their character, as well as sparkle and panache, a sense of drama and

seemingly inexhaustible stamina; and he can charm. Yet perhaps most delightful is the lightness and clarity of his decorative playing: even when subservient to the orchestra, one notices that every note of his roulades and filigree comes up glistening. And it is a bonus not to have the virtuoso passages

sounding hectic or overblown – for Saint-Saëns, virtuosity always had an expressive potential. There is an air of manufcature about the writing sometimes, certainly, but as Hough knows, there

must be nothing mechanical in the delivery of it. All of it tells. Sweeping across the keyboard, dipping and soaring through the teaming notes, he flies like a bird.

Camille Saint-Saëns - Stephen Hough

Trying to single out a quality which makes him particularly admirable, I think it should be his

acuteness of ear in all matters relating to sonority and balance. He conveys what makes these pieces tick: fine workmanship, fantasy, colour, and the various ways Saint-Saëns was so good at

combining piano and orchestra. Gounod remarked that his younger colleague ‘played with and made light of the orchestra as of the pianoforte’, and these scores are textbooks of lean but firm

orchestration from which at least one major French composer learned: Ravel, another eclectic, who must have seen the ‘old bear’ as a kindred spirit and whose G major Piano Concerto might surely not have been written the way it is without the example of Saint-Saëns’s achievements. The days are past when the CBSO under Louis Frémaux was considered Britain’s ‘French’ orchestra, but

with Sakari Oramo it does splendidly here, playing alertly with its inspiring soloist. It is a partnership which often goes beyond the punctual and the musicianly, and in the picture-postcard

orientalism of the ‘Egyptian’ Fifth Concerto achieves a level of exceptional vivacity and definition. The recording balances are fine, with lovely piano sound and plenty of orchestral detail in natural-sounding perspectives. There is more personal music in these concertos and the four smaller pieces than I had remembered and these performances have brought it up as fresh as paint. Irreproachably elegant on the surface, the music is all the better for sometimes disclosing a basic vulgarity, as if a streak of plebeian blood were there to act as a safeguard against the nervous instability inherent in good breeding. It is shot through not only with good tunes but with touches of the vernacular and the theatrical. It is never insipid and rarely banal. This seems to me a spiffing set and pleasurable

discoveries and rediscoveries await. Stephen Plainstow, Gramophone, November 2001

Algiers in 1921, at the time of Saint-Saëns passing

… Superlative (The Independent) … Superb… Hough’s new set in Hyperion’s outstanding Romantic Piano Concerto series sweeps the board (The Guardian) … A delightful set that does this underrated composer full credit (Classic FM Magazine) … 'It is unalloyed pleasure to sit

through all five at a sitting … the quite outstanding pianism of Stephen Hough makes this an unmissable addition to anyone remotely interested in the barnstorming, physically exhilarating

concertos of the late nineteenth century (International Record Review) ... Marvellous performances, full of joy, vigour and sparkle. The recording is in the demonstration bracket and this

Hyperion set includes no fewer than four encores. An easy first choice (The Penguin Guide to Compact Discs)

Three languages-, 28 pages-booklet in .pdf format included. Complete details of the Romantic Piano Concerto project can be found

at the Hyperion Records website (Indexes - Collections)

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