This CD is reissued by ArkivMusic.
Notes and Editorial Reviews
A superb pair of performances from one of the leading fortepianists of the day in music that is full of charm and colour.
I started listening to this recording determined to suppress my dislike of the fortepiano, and it is a measure of the disc's sheer quality that by the end I was practically a convert. It's an outstanding disc, much the best recording of Field's concertos I have heard. Yes, for someone who loves the sound and capabilities of the modern piano, the thinner tone, distinctive timbre and more intimate dynamic scope (or, put another way, the lack of power) of the fortepiano take some adjusting to. But you do adjust, and once you become attuned to the tonal and colouristic possibilities, the daring nature
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of the piano writing emerges with striking force. Take, for example, the soloist's first entry in the Second Concerto, where the virtuosic power and originality delivers its full intended frisson and physicality when heard on an instrument being pushed to its limit.
Andreas Staier is a brilliant pianist (and harpsichordist) who allies dazzling technical elan to his acute musical insight and imagination. In the outer movements, his fingerwork is as precise and crystalline as his musical intelligence, with passagework assuming a quasi-melodic purpose, elevated to the level of what Gerald Abraham called 'significant line'. The slow movement of the A flat Concerto, a brief contrasting molto espressivo song without words, is played with unaffected simplicity and clarity of line, while in the E flat major Concerto, Staier - following Field's own practice of interpolating one of his nocturnes as a slow movement - plays the well-known work in C minor.
Staier is a most poetic and inspiring advocate, yet the success of these performances is as much due to the extraordinary clarity and impact of the orchestral playing from the Concerto Koln. Right from the start you know you're in for something special: there is such an infectious generosity of spirit, such vivid character and crispness, with beautifully poised wind playing and a real bite from the brass and timpani. Try the opening of the finale of the Second Concerto, where, after the lilting melody is presented by the soloist, the full orchestra respond with invigorating gusto and rusticity, never losing their tonal blend or refinement. The recorded sound, too, is wonderfully clear and detailed.
This is not a recording that merely reconstructs the sound world of Field's day; the sights of the period-instrument movement are now set much higher, and as the musicologist Richard Taruskin has averred, we ought to believe that we can do better than a work's first performers. Indeed, if Field himself ever heard performances of his concertos as accomplished and refined, as polished and rhythmically alive, or as engaging and uplifting as these, then he would have been very fortunate. As it is, the fortune is ours - enjoy!
-- Tim Parry, Gramophone [6/2000]
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Works on This Recording
1.
Concerto for Piano no 2 in A flat major, H 31 by John Field
Performer:
Andreas Staier (Fortepiano)
Conductor:
David Stern
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Concerto Cologne
Period: Romantic
Written: 1816; England
Date of Recording: 10/1998
Venue: Deutschland Radio, Cologne, Germany
Length: 31 Minutes 24 Secs.
2.
Concerto for Piano no 3 in E flat major, H 32 by John Field
Performer:
Andreas Staier (Fortepiano)
Conductor:
David Stern
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Concerto Cologne
Period: Romantic
Written: 1816; England
Date of Recording: 10/1998
Venue: Deutschland Radio, Cologne, Germany
Length: 28 Minutes 13 Secs.
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