The British recording label Hyperion has a CD series entitled, “The Romantic Piano Concerto” which, as of 2024, has 87 volumes of mostly single CDs featuring works by over 125 different composers. The purpose is to present neglected composers who wrote in the Romantic style, so this roster almost entirely consists of names that are known mostly to specialists. (Of interest, Amy Beach, familiar to the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra family because of our performance of her “Gaelic” Symphony -- as well as Robert Schumann’s wife, Clara, are in the series.)
The Finnish composer Selim Palmgren (1878-1951) could have made the Hyperion list as a neglected, Romantic-style composer, but his five piano concertos had been recorded already by Nordic labels. Note that “Romantic style” is the term used. Palmgren was born after Gustav Mahler (1860) Claude Debussy (1862), Richard Strauss (1864), Jean Sibelius (1865) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874) – Stravinsky (1882) was a few years younger. But Palmgren wrote in a Romantic style that might be more akin to Franz Liszt (1811-1886) or Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943). If he was influenced by any of those modern composers, it would be the impressionism of Debussy and the Finnish nationalism of Sibelius. (He is not alone in being an “Unrepentant Romantic” living in the modernist 20th century. The Hyperion series of 130+ works features approximately 40 that were premiered in the 20th century.) The Rachmaninov legacy, though that of the archetypal “displaced” Romantic, needed no Hyperion-label boost because of the abundant success of his works with their world-conquering melodies. Yet, his First and Fourth piano concertos are much less often played because their melodies haven’t caught on. And that seems the crux of the status of the “neglected” Romantic composer. They live and die by the attractiveness of their melodies.
Palmgren trained as a pianist in Berlin with Konrad Ansorge, who had been a student of Liszt, and Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), whose monumental Piano Concerto of 1904 is featured in the Hyperion series. Palmgren, was not only a composer, but he was also a touring pianist as well as a choral and orchestral conductor. In addition to the five piano concertos, Palmgren wrote in all genres, including opera, and most notably, over 300 pieces for piano.
The Piano Concerto No. 2 “The River” op. 33(1913) flows in a single movement similar to the two piano concertos of Liszt. The river in question is Kokenmäki, which winds its way through the Finnish city of Pori about a 150-mile car trip from Helsinki. More important is the repeated use that Palmgren makes of the melody of a Swedish folk song Näckens Polska about a river sprite who lures people with his music into the river to drown them. (None of this is depicted in the Concerto.) The bassoons raise the Swedish melody out of the misty introductory string tremolos “Lento ma non troppo” (Slow but not too much). The following “Allegro” (fast) section starts with a transformation of the theme in the clarinets. A second theme is presented by the strings with a piano accompaniment. A more dancing, scherzo passage is followed by a flowing solo cadenza. The slow introduction returns and the theme is presented in increasingly passionate, lush Rachmaninov-like passages with strings and English horn. There is one more solo cadenza before the build to the conclusion.
Program Note by IPO Board Member
Charles Amenta, M.D.