The Romantic Piano Concerto – Vol. 74: William Sterndale Bennett: Piano Concertos Nos. 1-3 —Howard Shelley, piano; BBC Scottish Symphony (Hyperion 68178)
English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator William Sterndale Bennett was ten years old when he was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music. By the age of twenty, he had begun to make a reputation as a concert pianist, and his compositions received high praise. Felix Mendelssohn was impressed enough to invite him to Leipzig. There Bennett became friendly with Robert Schumann, who was enchanted with Bennett’s Piano Concerto No.3, especially the second movement Romanza. Like Mendelssohn, Bennett was a prodigy: these three concertos were written by a composer/pianist who was just 16 to 18 years old! Gramophone says of this March 2018 release: “Shelley savors and often sculpts the virtuoso flights of fancy – and, in general, elicits a wealth of expressive detail from material that might appear unremarkable on its surface. What impresses most in his interpretation is how he makes the ornamental sound meaningfully expressive. This generously packed, beautifully recorded disc is simply revelatory.”