Howard Shelley and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra: Moscheles' Piano Concertos

Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870) was one of the great virtuoso pianists of his time, a man whose personality and somewhat conservative taste shaped the first 20 years of the Leipzig Conservatory. He himself had been a persecuted student, suffering the indignity of being banned from the library lest he succumb to experimental influences.

Moscheles was a fanatical admirer of Beethoven, being commissioned to arrange Fidelio for the piano; a few years earlier, the young Moscheles had copied out Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata by hand when he didn't have the two florins for the published copy.

And what of Moscheles' own music? A second instalment of Moscheles' Piano Concertos in Hyperion's The Romantic Piano Concerto series, played by Howard Shelley with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, offers welcome enlightenment.

Don't expect an overlooked visionary - Moscheles is far from being in Beethoven's league.

The first of the three concertos might even irritate as it scampers about blithely, flaunting themes that might well have had Mozart consulting a copyright lawyer.

The other two are more adventurous, although the Fantastique is a few hundred notches below Berlioz' Symphony which predates it by four years. Alongside the Frenchman's opium-laced frenzies, Moscheles' work is a vicarage tea party with a wee bit too much rum in the trifle.

These works are the ultimately the triumph of style over content, but it's undeniably pleasant to drift along in the stream of notes Moscheles so effortlessly generates (the Vivace movement of the Fantastique is pretty typical). The first movement of the Pathetique has a tune quota that makes you realise why Rossini suggested Moscheles should have written operas - or perhaps the Italian was flattered by the near-quotation of his own Barber of Seville in the concerto's second movement.

Howard Shelley's lovely pearl-toned performance and sprightly musical direction give due love and attention to graceful, civilised scores which offer little in the way of interpretative challenge. The Tasmanian orchestra comes up trumps, and, on the recording side, it's up there with Hyperion's considerable best.

This might be toe-in-the-water stuff for some. If you're a first-timer and are taken by this disc, there are 31 other volumes to investigate.


(Label: Hyperion CDA 67385)