Pre-Order: Simon Callaghan - William Sterndale Bennett: Pno Con Nos. 4 & 6 & Co [CD]

Bennett was acknowledged both in England and Germany as an outstanding pianist and his finest and most characteristic music was composed for his own instrument. As well as numerous works for solo piano, including two sonatas, he composed six piano concertos and a single movement Caprice for piano and orchestra. He gave public performances of all his works for piano and orchestra with himself as soloist. It was during the heady days of Bennett's third long visit to his friends in Leipzig, from January to March 1842, that he mentioned in correspondence that he was working on a new concerto, which he hoped to perform before leaving for London. In the event this did not happen, but a substantial amount of work must have been done at this stage on what was to become the unpublished Piano Concerto no. 6 in A minor, WO 48. Bennett did further work on the concerto in the summer of 1843 and hoped to publish it, but changes to his personal circumstances contributed towards further delays. His son claimed that he always intended it to be published, but as the years passed the more out-of-date it became. Martin Yates writes about his completion of Piano Concerto No. 6: The score existed in three clearly laid out movements and although the piano part looked in places to be more of a sketch than a finished article, it was fairly clear where the missing music was and also reasonably clear as to how these gaps could have potentially been filled in. Sometimes the piano part petered out altogether and in other places the right hand was written out whilst the left hand was missing or there was the start of an accompanying figure in the left hand which stopped after a just a few notes. The completion on my part was of course partly guesswork based on my knowledge of Sterndale Bennett's style, the music of the period and also the music that was already completed on the manuscript. Unless a more complete score of this concerto materialises, I feel I have done what is possible in helping this concerto come back to life and in doing so hopefully contributing to the remarkable legacy of Sterndale Bennett; a considerable composer of stature and invention. The Concerto for Two Pianos in C major, WO 29, in actuality a single movement, was composed in the Spring of 1835 as a collaboration between Bennett and his fellow pupil at the RAM George Alexander Macfarren. Bennett and Macfarren were the leading students of composition in their year and, both being pianists, they determined to jointly compose and then perform with their fellow students a concerto for two pianos and orchestra. The composition of a double piano concerto was not a requirement of their studies, but rather for their enjoyment, with perhaps a touch of rivalry thrown in. The two men began by taking turns: Bennett composed the first thirty-seven bars, Macfarren the next fifty, and so on, with the last 125 bars or so apparently a collaboration. c Rosemary Firman