Howard Shelley; Howard Shelley: Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra - Kalkbrenner: Piano Concertos Nos 2 & 3

If the name Friedrich Kalkbrenner is familiar at all, it�s probably for his famous suggestion that Chopin would benefit from three years of study with him (a bold offer the Pole wisely turned down). But, as Hyperion�s ever-expanding Romantic Piano Concerto series has repeatedly shown, received historical opinion and musical quality don�t always go hand in hand. With Volume 56 we reach the second and final instalment of Kalkbrenner�s concertos, dazzlingly played by Howard Shelley, directing the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra from the keyboard. For all that Kalkbrenner wasn�t afraid to write big, bold orchestral introductions, it�s when the pianist makes his entry that you realize what a jawdropping player he must have been, with writing of such glittering, glistening panache that it must have had those polite salon ladies reaching for their smelling salts.