The Romantic Piano Concerto Album
Bronsart & Urspruch: Piano Concertos
Emmanuel Despax (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra,
Eugene Tzigane (conductor)
Hyperion Records
The common thread - as so often in The Romantic Piano Concerto series - is Liszt, in whose Weimar circle both composer-pianists featured here moved. Both concertos are pleasingly substantial, and the typically demanding piano writing is powerfully dispatched by Emmanuel Despax.
"It’s hard to imagine it being better played than by these forces, Emmanuel Despax displaying a wide range of colours combined with an easy virtuosity ... It requires prodigious playing from soloist and orchestral musicians to make it sound as effortless as here, and that it does is tribute as much to conductor Eugene Tzigane as to Despax.” Gramophone, UK
