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Track(s) taken from APR7401
Recording details: June 1928
HMV, United Kingdom
Release date: April 2014
Total duration: 24 minutes 19 seconds
HMV, United Kingdom
Release date: April 2014
Total duration: 24 minutes 19 seconds
Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor, Op 22
composer
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Andante sostenuto
[10'52]
recorded 26 June 1928
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Allegro scherzando
[6'10]
recorded 26 June 1928
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Presto
[7'17]
recorded 26 June 1928
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Other recordings available for download |
Stephen Hough (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo (conductor)
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Introduction |
Saint-Saëns composed his Second Piano Concerto in 1868. One of its many original features is the tempo gradation of its three-movement plan – ‘Andante sostenuto’, ‘Allegro scherzando’, ‘Presto’. The extended solo passage which opens the work – an obvious homage to Bach – originated in one of the composer’s improvising sessions at the organ. (Saint-Saëns was widely recognised as the greatest organist of his day, and his skill at improvisation – an art which he valued highly – is clearly related to the abundance of cadenza-like passages in these concertos.) The principal theme of this movement is not actually by Saint-Saëns, but was borrowed from Fauré, who had decided against using it in an early Tantum ergo. A spirit of Mendelssohnian delicacy hovers over the second movement, while Saint-Saëns’s individual and mischievous wit is evident in the timpani solos, soon imitated by the piano left hand. A bustling tarantella rhythm propels much of the finale, but the development section is dominated by a trill-obsessed figure from the second subject, while the woodwind intone a chorale-like melody.
from notes by Phillip Borg-Wheeler © 2001 |
Other albums featuring this work
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Irene Scharrer – The complete electric and selected acoustic recordings
APR6010
2CDs for the price of 1 — Download only
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