Hyperion Records

Thomas Roseingrave’s D major Concerto is a reduction of a lost orchestral concerto, performed by Roseingrave in Dublin on 8 March 1750. The work is in D major with fanfare-like tutti passages in the outer movements, and it was not hard to score them up for two trumpets, timpani and strings. Roseingrave was born in Winchester in 1688, the son of an organist and composer. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and in Venice, and established himself in London in the 1720s, becoming organist of St George’s Hanover Square in 1725. His later years were clouded by madness; he was forced to relinquish his post in 1744 and returned to Dublin around 1750, where he died in 1766. Roseingrave’s concerto is a vigorous Vivaldian work, but it is fairly primitive in style and structure and was probably composed long before 1750; indeed, it may be the earliest keyboard concerto by an English (or British) composer.

from notes by Peter Holman © 1994