Ireland: Piano Concerto; Legend; First Rhapsody; A Sea Idyll, etc – review

The piano concerto that John Ireland composed in 1930 is generally regarded as the finest orchestral work of a composer who generally seems to have been more effective working on a smaller, more intimate scale. It was played by a number of outstanding pianists, including Clifford Curzon and Arthur Rubinstein, but it's rarely heard in concert halls nowadays, and the majority of the 10 versions in the current CD catalogue would qualify as historic recordings. But as John Lenehan's finely nuanced performance with John Wilson and the Liverpool orchestra shows, it's a pleasant enough work, predominantly introspective without extravagant displays of virtuosity, and which in its finale unexpectedly flirts with neoclassicism. Though the solo piano pieces included on this well-filled disc seem rather bland and anonymous, the Legend for piano and orchestra that follows the Concerto seems a far more distinctive and intriguing piece. Composed three years later for the same pianist, Ireland's "protegee" Helen Perkin , it's a taut evocation of a prehistoric landscape in the South Downs, pungently scored.