A partner at Pleyel, Kalkbrenner was instrumental (!) in bringing Chopin to Paris; according to the entertaining booklet note he was enormously self-important but shrewd in understanding public taste. Musicologists have dismissed his output as utterly trite, but as these neatly turned performances show there's a certain charm in the predictability of the music (it dates from the mid-1820s) -eg, both concertos have lengthy suspenseful introductions before we hear the soloist. Howard Shelley is good at Kalkbrenner's 'carezzando' demands and evidently unfazed by the leggiero octaves, rapid thirds, etc.
展开▼