Stéphan Elmas - Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 (Howard Shelley)

Information

Composer: Stéphan Elmas

• Piano Concerto No. 1 in G minor
• Piano Concerto No. 2 in D minor

Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

Howard Shelley, piano & conductor

Date: 2021

Label: Hyperion

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Review

Hyperion keeps pulling obscure Romantic concertos out of the woodwork, this time with two by Armenian composer Stéphan Elmas (1862-1937). According to Jeremy Nicholas’s excellent and informative booklet notes, Elmas started out as a piano prodigy and then turned to composition, which he continued to pursue despite losing his hearing as a result of typhoid fever. After settling in Geneva, he fell in love with the armless painter Aimée Rapin, who nursed him through periods of severe depression.

Elmas’s conservative musical language might be described as a hybrid of Anton Rubinstein’s heroic, declarative concerto style and the kind of lyricism and sophisticated filigree associated with Chopin. Indeed, the G minor First Concerto’s central Larghetto owes a lot to the Larghetto from Chopin’s Second Concerto. The outer movements abound with attractive and idiomatic piano-writing that also reflects Chopin’s style, yet without the latter’s finely honed harmonic sensibility.

However, Elmas’s personality better asserts itself in the D minor Second Concerto’s stormier outbursts, along with a generally fuller-bodied and orchestrally inspired approach to the instrument, as the Brahmsian octave passages and hefty chord-voicings bear out. By contrast, the central Andante answers the musical question of how the slow movement of Mozart’s D minor Concerto, K466, would have been appropriated by generic Hollywood composers in the late 1930s or early 1940s.

If one cannot claim these works as deathless masterpieces, the redoubtable Howard Shelley once again proves himself the piano world’s St Jude: the passionate advocate of the Romantic concerto repertoire’s lost causes. The pianist’s nuanced and sweeping phrasing, his wide dynamic range and his perpetually singing tone convey both urgency and nobility to the point where he convinces you that this is great music. He also elicits hearty playing from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, with balances that bring the winds and brass to the forefront. Not the most essential offering in Hyperion’s valuable series, but Shelley’s persuasive performances are self-recommending to those who’ve been steadfastly collecting each volume.

— Jed Distler

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Stéphan Elmas (1862 – August 11, 1937) was an Armenian composer, pianist and teacher. A prodigy, he studied piano and composition in Vienna following encouragement from Franz Liszt, to whom he later dedicated several works. Elmas enjoyed a successful international concert career across Europe, performing both his own compositions and works by major Romantic composers. He settled permanently in Geneva in 1912, where he taught and composed despite declining health and increasing isolation. His music, particularly refined salon pieces, reflects a Romantic style rooted in earlier traditions.

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Howard Shelley (born 9 March 1950) is a British pianist and conductor. After winning the Royal College of Music's premier prize in his first year, his career was launched by a successful London recital and a televised BBC Proms appearance with the London Symphony Orchestra. He has since performed widely across the UK, Europe, Scandinavia, North America, Russia, Australia and the Far East. Shelley has made over eighty-five recordings and is particularly acclaimed for his interpretations of Rachmaninov. His extensive discography for Hyperion and Chandos spans a broad repertoire from Classical to 20th-century composers.

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