Alan Rawsthorne - Piano Concertos (Geoffrey Tozer)

Information

Composer: Alan Rawsthorne

1. Piano Concerto No. 1: I. Capriccio. Allegro molto - Presto
2. Piano Concerto No. 1: II. Chaconne. Andante con moto
3. Piano Concerto No. 1: III. Tarantella. Vivace
4. Piano Concerto No. 2: I. Allegro piacevole
5. Piano Concerto No. 2: II. Allegro molto
6. Piano Concerto No. 2: III. Adagio semplice
7. Piano Concerto No. 2: IV. Allegro
8. Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra: I. Allegro di bravura
9. Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra: II. Adagio ma non troppo
10. Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra: III. Theme and Variations

Geoffrey Tozer, piano
Tamara Anna Cislowska, piano (8-10)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Matthias Bamert, conductor

Date: 1992
Label: Chandos
https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010339

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Review

An obvious coupling (all Rawsthorne's keyboard concertos on a single CD) but an absorbing one, which might prompt a positive revaluation of all three works. The seldom-heard First Concerto would be likelier, you might think, to demand our indulgence than the once popular Second: an earlyish piece, in some ways a sketch for its successor, its influences (Prokofiev and Walton, mainly) not yet quite digested. In fact it's such a cleverly made piece, at the same time so attractively enigmatic, that you may be even more irritated by its current relative neglect than by that of the Second Concerto. The first movement's rhythmic flexibility and its inventive thematic transformation enable it to withstand comparisons with Prokofiev and Walton quite easily, and although the central chaconne's alternation of elegant melody with crisply pianistic incisiveness again recalls Prokofiev, it is its personal, elusively elegiac tone that lingers in the memory. And why does an Italian partisan tune provoke in the finale first a raucous tutti, then a quiet, oddly fragmented conclusion?

The Second Concerto is in a way more straightforward: its grateful, at times showy, keyboard writing, the bravura and unshadowed exuberance of its finale (springing from an irresistible tune, an anglicized rumba) have obvious popular appeal. But again it's the compositional craft and the likeable personal voice that draw you back for further hearings: the cunning integration of the first movement's seeming disparity (in fact it's effectively monothematic); the contrasts in the Adagio (audibly descended from those in the First Concerto's chaconne) of unquiet darkness and vividly flashing brilliance now Rawsthorne's own indebted to Prokofiev but repaying that debt with interest. It is fine, striking and strange music, but a more worrying strangeness continually disturbs the late Double Concerto. This is a work of sudden outbursts, discontinuities and contradictions, tense and often stormy, lyricism being more likely to provoke than to soothe it I am at the moment in short, more interested than convinced by it, but the piece is so well performed that I shall persevere.

The two solo concertos can be unreservedly recommended. I don't suppose Tozer or Bamert had either work in their repertory when this recording was planned, but their respect for the music (and in Tozer's case an enjoyment of Rawsthorne's brilliantly idiomatic keyboard writing) is audible in the great care they take over it. An excellent recording, too, which makes no apologies for Rawsthorne's occasional patches of exuberant (in the case of the Double Concerto choleric) noisiness.

-- Michael Oliver, Gramophone

More reviews:
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/rawsthorne-piano-concertos-nos-1-2-concerto-for-2-pianos
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2008/July08/Rawsthorne_Tozer_CHAN10339x.htm
http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/c/cha10339a.php
https://www.amazon.com/Rawsthorne-Piano-Concertos-Concerto-Pianos/dp/B000000AQT

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Alan Rawsthorne (2 May 1905 – 24 July 1971) was a British composer. He studied at the Royal Manchester College of Music with Frank Merrick and Carl Fuchs, then with Egon Petri at Zakopane in Poland, and briefly in Berlin, too. His large scale Symphonic Studies (1939) helped Rawsthorne establish himself as a composer possessing a highly distinctive musical voice. Other acclaimed works by Rawsthorne include a viola sonata, 2 piano concertos, an oboe concerto, 2 violin concertos, a concerto for string orchestra, the Elegy for guitar, a cello concerto, 3 string quartets and 3 symphonies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Rawsthorne

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Geoffrey Tozer (5 November 1954 – 21 August 2009) was an Australian classical pianist and composer. A child prodigy, he composed an opera at the age of eight and became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship award at 13. Tozer had more than 100 concertos in his repertoire. He recorded for the Chandos label, beginning with the works of Medtner. Tozer won numerous awards and much recognition worldwide, but suffered comparative neglect in Australia, during the last years of his life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Tozer

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