Moscheles: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3;
Anticipations of Scotland

Performer:	Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra	Click Image To See Full Size Pic
CD Title:	Moscheles: Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3; Anticipations of Scotland
Composer:	Ignaz Moscheles
CD INFO:	Hyperion CDA67276
Reviewer:	Ward Botsford
Notes:	Howard Shelley, piano/conductor

Listen to A Soundtrack From This CD Excerpt used: Anticipation of Scotland - Lord Moria's Stanhspey (Allegro moderato)

PLAY     REQUIRES REALPLAYER

Don't have it? Get it FREE!

Review:
No one is going to take these works seriously I trust. Nor should they but they are enjoyable to hear and I suspect to play.

Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and pianist who knew everybody who was anybody in the musical world. He must have been a superb technician just to play his own works. Harold Schonberg's The Great Pianists has a dandy five pages on the man, his music and his playing.

Of the two Concerti the best is the E flat if only because it is less solemn than the G minor. Up and down the scales we go! Cross hands! Bass chords followed by high octave fandangos! Seems a shame it is only thirty-one minutes long.

The G minor is slightly shorter and slightly less interesting but it too is entertaining to heed.

The orchestration is bright and there is a lot of timpani work in the first movement - that proceeds as the annotator says - the Scherzo of the Beethoven Ninth by some years.

As to the Anticipations of Scotland it was written before Moscheles trip to that bonnie country - as the title makes clear. It is in more-or-less five movements with titles of Scottish melodies such as Kelvin Grove, Auld Robin Gray and Lord Moira's Stanthprey in variations and melody. It's worth a listening but again it's the E flat that's worth the money.

Shelley at the helm and piano of the Tasmanian Symphony does his work with a smile on his face and with all fingers flying gracefully. It is a fun record.