STERNDALE BENNETT : Piano Concerto No 4, Op 19 • Caprice In E Major, Op 22 ♦ BACHE : Piano Concerto In E Major, Op 18 (First Recording) (Howard Shelley · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra) (2007) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 43 | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

The Romantic Piano Concerto series returns to England, and explores further fascinating and little-known repertoire. Indeed, the concerto by Francis Edward Bache (1833–1858) has perhaps never been performed. The composer, a pupil of Sterndale Bennett, and acclaimed at a young age by contemporaries all over Europe as a prodigious talent of whom great things were expected, died of TB at the age of 25, leaving the manuscript of his Piano Concerto in the library of the Royal Academy of Music, where it has languished until this recording. This enchanting work is a great discovery. Also on the disc are two accomplished works by the composer-pianist Sterndale Bennett. The indefatigable Howard Shelley directs the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra from the piano. Hyperion

Sir William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875)
                
Piano Concerto No 4 in F minor Op 19[27'23]

Francis Edward Bache (1833-1858)

Piano Concerto in E major Op 18[24'40]

Sir William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875)

Caprice In E Major Op 22 (12:49)

Credits :
Orchestra – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Piano, Conductor – Howard Shelley

STERNDALE BENNETT : Piano Concertos 1, 2, & 3 (Howard Shelley · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra) (2018) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 74 | FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Sir William Sterndale Bennett wrote six piano concertos and two other works for piano and orchestra, but the three works here were composed in succession in the 1830s, while Sterndale Bennett was still in his teens. They have been likened to works by Mozart, Mendelssohn, and (in the annotations here), various English composers, but the most accurate contention may be that of Rosemary Firman that Sterndale Bennett had a style uniquely his own. It's notable that at this point his style was developing fast; the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 9, shows a sustained effort to deal with the example of Beethoven that is not present in the two earlier works. Sterndale Bennett's music has an impersonal flavor that is as far as one can imagine from Schumann, yet Schumann admired his early works. From Mozart he inarguably got a strong sense of form. Sample the finale of the Piano Concerto in D minor, Op. 1, which expertly unfolds the implications of the unusual alternation of orchestra and piano at the beginning. As usual throughout Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series, Howard Shelley produces vivacious readings at the keyboard and also at the head of the orchestra, in this case the BBC Scottish Symphony. An enjoyable look at some fresh music by a British composer whose conservatism later doomed his reputation. James Manheim  
Tracklist :    
Piano Concerto No 1 In D Minor Op 1    (23:33)
Composed By – William Sterndale Bennett

Piano Concerto No 2 In E Flat Major Op 4    (26:49)
Composed By – William Sterndale Bennett

Piano Concerto No 3 In C Minor Op 9    (29:08)
Composed By – William Sterndale Bennett
Credits :
Conductor, Piano – Howard Shelley
Leader – Laura Samuel
Orchestra – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra