Leighton - Symphony No 1. Piano Concerto No 3

Howard Shelley, BBC NOW / Martyn Brabbins

CHAN10608 Buy now

Leighton
Symphony No 1. Piano Concerto No 3
Howard Shelley pf
BBC National Orchestra of Wales /
Martyn Brabbins
Chandos F CHAN10608 (61’ • DDD)

An exemplary addition to the happily expanding Leighton discography

I’m delighted to be able to report that Richard Hickox’s profoundly eloquent advocacy of Leighton in the previous volumes of orchestral music (7/08 and 1/09) is matched by that of Martyn Brabbins in this substantial new pairing of the First Symphony and Third Piano Concerto.

Cast in three movements and lasting some 35 minutes, the symphony was completed in 1964 after two earlier aborted attempts in the genre and won first prize at the 1965 City of Trieste competition; Aldo Ceccato conducted the May 1966 world premiere with the Giuseppe Verdi Theatre Orchestra in Trieste, and Sir Charles Groves gave the first UK performance with the RLPO in October 1967. Its opening movement evolves with an uncommonly gripping, almost Sibelian inevitability and leads to a punchy Scherzo which, according to the composer, “in a spirit of rebellion seeks to arrive at an affirmative answer by sheer force of will”. The work is capped by a patiently argued, powerfully questing finale.

Written in 1969 to a commission by the Feeney Trust and dedicated to the CBSO, the Third Piano Concerto was first performed by the Birmingham orchestra with Leighton himself as soloist under the baton of Louis Frémaux. Its subtitle of “Concerto estivo” (“Summer Concerto”) is perhaps most potently reflected in the central “Pastoral”, a gorgeous evocation of, in the composer’s own words, “the warmth and stillness of a hot summer afternoon” and which is flanked in turn by a beautifully wrought “Introduction” (pre-echoes here of the masterly Organ Concerto from 1970) and an exuberantly inventive theme-and-variations finale. Howard Shelley proves a marvellously stylish, involving exponent and is backed to the hilt by Brabbins and the BBC NOW. Chandos’s sound and balance, too, are beyond reproach. Andrew Achenbach