William Sterndale Bennett: Piano Concertos Nos. 4 & 6

Featuring

Simon Callaghan
Martin Yates
Hiroaki Takenouchi
Royal Northern Sinfonia
William Sterndale Bennett
George Macfarren

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Composer Biography

William Sterndale Bennett (1816-1875) was regarded as the leading English composer of orchestral music of the early Victorian period and one of the best pianists of his day.

Composition History

The Concerto for Two Pianos was never completed as a full concerto or, as far as recorded, performed before the present recording.

Composition History

Piano Concerto No. 6, WO 48, was believed lost until its sources were rediscovered in the 1990s by the present writer in the house of one of Bennett's descendants.

Composer Biography

Bennett was an orphan at age three and was raised by his grandparents, becoming a chorister at King's College from age seven.

Recording & Production

Martin Yates's completion of Piano Concerto No. 6 involved filling in gaps in the piano part and adding dynamics and articulation, as the original manuscript was more of a sketch.

Composition History

The Concerto for Two Pianos in C major, WO 29, was a collaboration between Bennett and his fellow Royal Academy of Music pupil George Alexander Macfarren (1813-1887), composed for their enjoyment and perhaps with a touch of rivalry.

Composition History

The slow movement of Piano Concerto No. 4, a Barcarole, was included at the insistence of Felix Mendelssohn, who heard it privately and was adamant it should form the slow movement.