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FELIX MENDELSSOHN (IHO!-J-1!347) Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 Concertos pour piano nos. 1 & 2 Klavierkonzerte Nr. 1 und 2

ANDRAS SCHIFF, piano' Klavicr Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra CHARLES DUTOIT Piano Concerto No.1 in G minor, opo25 Concerto pour piano no. I en sol nuncur, op.25 Klavicl'konzCIt Nr. I in g-moll, op. 25

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FELIX MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847) Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 Concertos pour piano nos. 1 & 2 Klavierkonzerte Nr. 1 und 2

ANDRAS SCHIFF, piano' Klavier Symphonie-Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra CHARLES DUTOIT Piano Concerto No.1 in G minor, op.25 Concerto pour piano no.l en sol mmeur, op.25 Klavierkonzert Nr. 1 in gomoll, op. 25

I Malta allegro con fuoco (6.53) 2 II Andante (5.27) 3 III Presto: Molto allegro e vivace (6.26) ~

Piano Concerto No.2 in D minor, op.40 Concerto pour piano no.2 en re mineur, op.40 Klavierkonzert Nr. 2 in d-moll, op. 40 o I Allegro appassionato (9.14) [I] II Adagio: Malta sostenuto (5.59)l.fI II I Finale: Presto scherzando (7.05) [QQQ]

Producer Directeur anistique . Aufnahmeleiter: Michael Haas Sound Engineer' Ingenieur du son' Toningenieur: Slan Goodall Cover' Couvenure . Titelseite: Photo of Andras Schiff and Charles DULOit by Bernard Bohn

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Mendelssohn: Piano concerto No.1 in G minor, opus 25 Piano concerto No.2 in D minor, opus 40

Mendelssohn was certainly able to play the violin, though in chamber music preferring to take the viola part; but his chief instruments were the piano and organ, on which he was universally recognised as a player of distinction. It is, then, perhaps a trifle odd that the most popular of his concertos, without question, is the one for violin that he wrote three years before his premature death at the age of thirty-eight, and that the two piano concertos of his early manhood, for all their engaging brilliance, are far less commonly heard nowadays. Both of these were written for himself to play (as were the piano and, probably, the violin concerto composed at the age of thirteen, the delightful double concerto for piano and violin, and the two works for two pianos, all composed during the following couple of years) and both were initially received with great enthusiasm. Mendelssohn gave the first performance of the G minor concerto (which was dedicated to a young pianist with whom he was rather taken) in Munich on 17 October 1831; and though the rehearsals were troublesome, on the night it won loud and long applause: "Itgave the people great pleasure, and they wanted, as is the fashion here, to clap until I came out

again, but I was shy and wouldn't." The second concerto was composed in a hurry for the Birmingham Festival (only three weeks previously Mendelssohn told his mother that "not a note is written yet") and first heard on 5 August 1837 by an audience that greeted him with such acclamation that for some time he was unable to take his seat at the piano and begin.

Mendelssohn seems to have disliked the thought of having the continuity of his music interrupted by applause between movements (then customary), and took steps in all three of his mature concertos to obviate this possibility by linking some or all of them. In the G minor work almost the same brass fanfare connects the turbulent opening movement with the romantic Andante (which begins with a cello cantilena) and that tender song-like movement with the exuberant free-rondo finale, near the end of which a reminiscence of the first movement appears. In the D minor the Allegro appassionato (rather darker in mood than its counterpart of six years earlier) also leads into the slow movement (in which the second half of the string melody becomes a recurring refrain) by way of a brief and

gentle solo modulation - neither work has a conventional cadenza - but the finale is merely marked to follow without a break, and in this concerto there are no thematic interconnections. One very conspicuous structural feature of both works is the absence of the orthodox first movement "double-exposition", that is to say, the unfolding of the whole thematic material in turn by the orchestra and the piano. Opus 40 has the soloist (as in Beethoven's 'Emperor' Concerto) twice bursting in at the outset with imposing flourishes, but the orchestra is then allowed only twenty bars

to expound the first subject, before the piano takes over and dominates the movement with only a couple of half-minute pauses for breath; in opus 25 the piano is even more radical in asserting its supremacy after a few introductory bars by the orchestra, and then arrogating to itself the presentation of both themes in its virtually non-stop course, in which bravura octave-work, sparkling runs and flying arpeggios (particularly of diminished-seventh chords) create a dazzling effect.

Lionel Salter

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