The Complete Piano Concertos Naxos 8.573201–02

Hindemith wrote much varied music for the piano with orchestral accompaniment. He intended his Theme with Four Variations (The Four Temperaments) as an experimental ballet, and it was first performed in this way in 1946 with choreography by George Balanchine. The manuscript of the Piano Music with Orchestra was found amongst pianist Paul Wittgenstein’s pa­pers after his wife’s death in 2001. The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is astutely conceived, whilst the Concert Music for Piano, Brass and Two Harps reveals Hindemith’s con­stant search for varied sound colour in his instrumentation.

Review:
Though appearing under many titles, the present release offers the complete ‘piano concertos’ by Paul Hindemith performed by the Turkish-born pianist, Idil Biret. The earliest work is the Piano Music with Orchestra dating from 1923…Quite a short work in four movements, it comes from that period in Hindemith’s life when he was still following a career as a performing musician. The following year, at the instigation of the conductor, Hermann Scherchen, he wrote the second Kammermusik (Chamber Music) scored for piano and twelve solo instruments. That was to prove a much more characterful piece, its opening movement a happy romp, before a more serious mode invades the second and most extensive movement. We return to the opening’s vivacious brilliance to conclude the score. Six years later the Concert Music for Piano, Brass and Two Harps was commissioned by an American patron of the arts and first performed in Chicago. We have now moved into Hindemith’s version of atonality, the piano set in direct contrast to the brass in the opening movement; complementing one another in the following Lebhaft (Lively); the piano and harps shimmering in the third movement, with a listener-friendly jazzy finale that ends in a feeling of resignation. The Second World War was in the offing when the Theme and Variations (The Four Temperaments) was completed…its five extended movements always pleasing the ear…Forward five years to the Piano Concerto, and an even more audience pleasing score that stylistically takes us two steps forward from Rachmaninov. The student orchestra offer enthusiastic support; Biret obviously enjoys the music, and the sound quality is reliable and well balanced.
David Denton, David's Review Cor­ner