Hyperion’s “The Romantic Piano Concerto” series, a wealth of novelties and delights, has reached its 43rd issue. Here is the first recording of Francis Edward Bache’s E major Piano Concerto, coupled with the Fourth Piano Concerto and E major Caprice by his teacher William Sterndale Bennett. Sheffield-born Bennett (1816‑75) was a highly respected figure, admired, though with qualifications, by Mendelssohn and Schumann. Indeed, it must have been gratifying for Mendelssohn to hear so clearly his own image in his student’s Concerto with its opening upward surge and conventionally agitated figuration. The central Barcarolle, too (which replaced an earlier, unsuccessful movement picturesquely called “A stroll through the meadows”), while hardly written to raise conservative hackles, is first piquantly then vehemently decorated before a finale full of busy virtuosity very much in the fashion of the times.

The Caprice (originally L’hilarité) once more found favour with both Moscheles and Schumann, who noted its grace and admired its modesty. Bache (1833‑58), on the other hand, ended by seeing Bennett’s gifts as more academic than inspirational and, branching out on his own, delighted in much major- rather than minor-key high spirits. Certainly neither composer could wish for a more persuasive advocate than Howard Shelley who, in his customary role as soloist and conductor, gives us an air-spun brilliance and stylistic elegance very much his own. Most refined of virtuosos, he has been admirably presented and recorded.