Hyperion reaches the 30th installment of its “Romantic Piano Concerto” series with this program of works by Sergei Lyapunov (1859-1924). A highly accomplished pianist in his own right, Lyapunov possessed an impressive pedigree as protégé of Balakirev and successor to Rimsky-Korsakov at the Imperial Chapel. And although Lyapunov lived to see the seismic shifts of early 20th-century compositional paradigms, his work hewed strictly to the big, lush romanticism of the preceding generation, as we hear in 1890’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (in its premiere recording), 1907’s Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes, and in the Second Piano Concerto, written in 1909.
Listening to this program is a rather exhausting proposition. If you’ve kept up with the series thus far, you’ve heard some prizes along with a fair number of works whose relegation to the minor ranks seems justified even after their “rediscovery”. (Volume 30–whew!) This is Romantic music with a vengeance: Lyapunov never was satisfied to use one note when 10 would do just splendidly. By the end of the second concerto, you either will be utterly enthralled or so addled by trills, runs, and splayed chords that you’ll be at a loss to know which end is up. And then there are the fulsome orchestral accompaniments and Lyapunov’s determination to squeeze as many melodic ideas as possible into each remarkably brief work (20 minutes’ average).
However, there’s no denying the sumptuous virtuosity inherent in these pieces, which pianist Hamish Milne tosses off with obvious relish and technical assurance. Lyapunov’s brightly colored orchestration gives Martyn Brabbins and his orchestra plenty of room to play as well, from the sparkling triangle in the Rhapsody’s Allegretto Scherzando to the thundering tuttis and soaring brass of the second concerto’s closing Allegro Molto. Kudos to Hyperion’s sound engineers: not a single one of Milne’s notes goes missing, even in the most hyperbolic tutti passage, and the bright sound enhances Lyapunov’s dramatic writing. Thrilling? Exasperating? It’s your call.
