Frith/Northern Sinf/Mogrelia - Field:Piano Concerto No. 7

Dublin-born prodigy John Field enjoyed a wide reputation and great popularity. He was renowned as a soloist for his delicacy of nuance and as a composer for his cultivation of that most poetic of forms, the nocturne. His Piano Concertos were eagerly anticipated and the premi�re of the Concerto No. 7 in Paris on Christmas Day 1832 was attended by both Chopin and Liszt. Ingeniously structured in two movements, its Rondo finale evokes the ballroom and Russia in a series of constant contrasts. The Irish Concerto is a reworking of the first movement of Field's Piano Concerto No. 2 in A flat major. Piano Concertos Nos 1-6 can be heard on 8.553770, 8.553771 and 8.574221. Benjamin Frith won the Dudley National Concerto Competition aged fourteen. Since then he has been a first prize winner in the Rubinstein Piano Masters Competition where he was also awarded the special prize for chamber music, and was awarded top prize in the Busoni International Piano Competition. He is an international concert artist and has given recitals and concerto performances throughout Europe, Northern America, India, Kazakhstan and the Far East. His diverse repertoire ranges from Scarlatti to James Macmillan and includes over fifty concertos, and much praise has been bestowed on his recordings.