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Britten - The Complete Works for Piano & Orchestra | Hyperion CDA67625

Britten - The Complete Works for Piano & Orchestra

£13.60

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Label: Hyperion

Cat No: CDA67625

Barcode: 0034571176253

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 1st September 2008

Radio 3 Building a Library First Choice Gramophone Award Winner

Contents

Artists

Steven Osborne (piano)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Ilan Volkov

Works

Britten, Benjamin

Diversions for Piano (left hand) and Orchestra, op.21
Piano Concerto in D major, op.13
Young Apollo, op.16

Artists

Steven Osborne (piano)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Ilan Volkov

About

The three compositions which comprise Britten’s music for solo piano and orchestra constitute a unique, yet still little explored, part of his output. Here they are brought together in a stunning disc that pays tribute to the great artistry of all involved.

Steven Osborne’s performance of Britten’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov at the 2007 BBC Proms redefined this often undervalued work in the ears of his listeners, imbuing it with hitherto unsuspected emotional and musical weight; playing the bravura passages with glittering assurance and joie de vivre. The same musicians have put down a benchmark recording here.

Diversions for left-hand piano and orchestra is a gem of a piece, which has rarely been recorded. It is highly virtuosic and incredibly well laid out for the left hand, at times almost in the form of études for piano and orchestra. Britten reaches unexpected levels of emotional intensity, most notably in the Chant and the powerful Allegro.

Seventy years or so after these works were first performed, their freshness and vitality speaks with the same musical truth that Imogen Holst divined in Britten’s work, when, writing to him after attending an early performance of Peter Grimes, she said: ‘You have given it to us at the very moment when it was most needed.’ In revisiting these unjustly neglected early works, and, through performances of matchless brilliance, discovering qualities that were missed or overlooked when they first appeared, we have good cause to echo her sentiments.

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