Despite his basically conservative tendencies, the prolific Jadassohn was somewhat influenced by the music of Liszt and Wagner, nowhere more obviously than in his Piano Concerto No 1 in C minor Op 89 (1887), which forsakes the traditional organization in favour of an interlinked Introduction quasi recitativo, Adagio sostenuto and Ballade. In proportions this turns out to be very similar to Liszt’s first piano concerto, with a relatively perfunctory, improvisatory opening section, a more expansive slow section and then a finale which emerges as the most complex and prolonged movement of all, unfolding in the full sonata-form that the other sections notably avoided. A frenetically agitated coda rounds off this passionate and formally inventive piece.
from notes by Kenneth Hamilton © 2009
