Tippett: Piano Concerto

The musical and intellectual exuberance of Tippett’s music is fully demonstrated in his piano works, recorded here in their entirety on a double CD. The sonatas and concertante works recorded here offer a more compact survey of the various stages of his composing career than any other of the traditional genres he favoured: symphony, opera, and string quartet.

Every one of Tippett’s six piano works is substantial, if not in length then in compositional ambition. By temperament he conceived music on a large scale and was more attracted to the sonata than the short genre piece typical of the famous pianist-composers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Being only a moderate pianist himself his piano writing speaks of an imagination directed not by virtuosity or routine movements of the fingers or the blandishments of the sustaining pedal but one set free to explore the contrapuntal style and fascination with rhythm it was heir to.

This is full-blooded, dramatic, joyful music. Steven Osborne is a celebrated interpreter of Tippett’s piano music, making the works his own and dealing with their considerable technical difficulties with ease and aplomb. In a recent interview with International Piano magazine, he wrote ‘I can’t think of any late 20th-century music that is more gripping to perform’. He is joined by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Martyn Brabbins.

CDA67461/2  140 minutes 3 seconds (2 discs)
GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2008
GRAMOPHONE RECOMMENDS
SUNDAY TIMES CONTEMPORARY CD OF THE YEAR
THE GUARDIAN TOP MUSICAL EVENTS OF 2007
BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INSTRUMENTAL CHOICE
DIAPASON D'OR
‘Osborne's outstanding recording of the Piano Concerto … it's a lyrical piece with magical moments’ (The Mail on Sunday)
‘The mighty Concerto, starkly and confidently poised between Tippett's still richly potent earlier style and the brave new possibilities explored in its visionary central movement … the eloquence ...
‘This splendid double album … performances that impressively set new standards in these often challenging works … Steven Osborne seems to have the measure of them all. His account of the Con ...