Ireland: Piano Concerto (Legend/ Pastoral/ Sea Idyll) [CD]

John Ireland's Piano Concerto of 1930 receives a thoroughly sympathetic, lucid performance, as does the ominously darker Legend of three years later. The concerto, while infused with Prokofiev's zest, is pure Ireland in spirit, an amalgam that Lenehan captures ideally, as he does the passion of the First Rhapsody and A Sea Idyll. A delightful disc. ***** --The Telegraph,29/09/11

I particularly liked his musing, elegiac take on the haunting slow movement, and the orchestral playing is impressively responsive throughout. Performance **** Recording **** --BBC Music Magazine,Dec'11

I am delighted to welcome to the catalogue a splended new recording of what is undoubtedly the finest of all British piano concertos,which has not deserved its neglect since it was frequently heard at the Proms in the 1930' and'40's.Worthy to rank with the finest 20th-century works in this form,its poetic lyricism and distinctive melodic inspiration are the ageless tradition of the greatest English music.After its jiggy first movement it offers one of the most gently beautiful slow movements of any piano concerto written last century,and its bright finale has an indelible main theme that won't be ble to get out of your head once the work concludes.John Lenehan has already recorded a great deal of Ireland's piano music for Naxos with distinction and he is again at his finest here.The Legend(written only three years after the concerto)is almost equally memorable.In both works the RLPO is on first-class form under the understanding direction of John Wilson,who is renouned as a passionate advocate of English music and the Naxos recording is in the demonstration bracket. In the solo items,written earlier,Lenehan proves equally responsive.The First Rhapsody,a really impressive work,is paaionately virtuoso,and the evocative Pastoral makes a pleasing foil to it. Indian Summer brings a brief but typically expressive song without words.The Sea Idyll is in three contrasting sections,rhapsodic rather than pictoral,and the Three Dances are folksy,simple but fetchingly contrasted,the enclosing 'Reapers' Dance engagingly vigorous,and again the Naxos recording is a very real and present.A CD not to be missed by all lovers of English music. EDITIORS CHOICE --Gramophone,Dec'11

The piano concerto that John Ireland composed in 1930 is generally regarded as the finest orchestral work of a composer who generally seems to have been more effective working on a smaller, more intimate scale. It was played by a number of outstanding pianists, including Clifford Curzon and Arthur Rubinstein, but it's rarely heard in concert halls nowadays, and the majority of the 10 versions in the current CD catalogue would qualify as historic recordings. But as John Lenehan's finely nuanced performance with John Wilson and the Liverpool orchestra shows, it's a pleasant enough work, predominantly introspective without extravagant displays of virtuosity, and which in its finale unexpectedly flirts with neoclassicism. The Legend for piano was composed three years later for the same pianist, Ireland's "protegee" Helen Perkin, it's a taut evocation of a prehistoric landscape in the South Downs, pungently scored. *** --Guardian,22/12/11

John Ireland's radiant Piano Concerto was written for his protégée Helen Perkin, and is infused with her sense of vitality. The result is a brilliant work of high spirits and expressive longing. Perkin also premièred Legend, a dark, brooding evocation of the ancient landscape of Harrow Hill on the Sussex Downs. Of the solo piano works, the First Rhapsody is earlier, virtuosic, and in the Lisztian tradition, whereas Indian Summer is a rural postcard of beguiling simplicity. John Lenehan has recorded three volumes of Ireland's solo piano music (8.553700, 8.553889 and 8.570461) to universal admiration: Lenehan offers a uniquely vital and dramatic reading of the sonata. (MusicWeb International on Vol. 3)