On Volume 76 of Hyperion's Romantic Piano Concerto series, pianist Simon Callaghan and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra led by Ben Gernon perform three works by Rheinberger and Scholz unlikely to be encountered in the concert hall. The high expectations of this series are amply realized by these artists who wholeheartedly, and justifiably, believe in the music.
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REVIEW:
Opulent and rhetorically colorful, Rheinberger's Concerto reveals a gracious, competent spirit, certainly effective for pianist Callaghan, and is also well recorded.
Scholz's Piano Concerto in B Major and Capriccio — both heard in their debut recordings — reveal in their lyricism, filigree, and mellifluousness influences of and inspirations from the major figures of his time and place, from Mendelssohn and Schumann to Dvorak and Saint-Saens. If in the final analysis his writing lacks the heroic or brilliant invention of the composer’s major contemporaries, it still serves to illuminate the talents of the principals.
