Berwald Piano concerto

 Day 66

Berwald Piano concerto

Niklas Sivelöv

Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra

Okko Kamu

I first came across Berwald in the Penguin book about the symphony. Volume One covered the classical and romantic period and along with all of the name you would expect - Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn etc- was Berwald. Who was this man who I had never heard of who was deemed important enough to join such an august company? I think that I may have had one of his symphonies in my LP collection but I certainly got to know quite a lot of his music at University, not least because the opera group gave the British premiere of his opera The Queen of Golconda.  Later on I also had the pleasure of conducting the Sinfonie Singuliere which I consider to be a masterpiece, though I have to say that not everybody in the orchestra agreed with me on that!

I’d heard the violin concerto and the concert piece for bassoon, but the piano concerto was new to me. I though that it was delightful piece - very much in the Schumann/Mendelssohn tradition but with enough of Berwald’s trade marks - unexpected harmonic twists and melodies that don’t quite do in the direction you expect - to mark it out as a very much the composer’s own. The last movement in particular is charming. Nobody would ever call this a masterpiece - it is not on the same level as the symphonies - but it is hugely enjoyable and certain worth an occasional airing.

The piano plays throughout the piece with no rests even in what are obviously orchestral tutti passages. I seems, though I don’t know this for certain, that Berwald designed the piece so that the piano part could be played on its own without orchestral accompaniment - that is a very odd thing for a 19th century composer to do, though earlier composer certainly did think in this way. In this recording the piano part was discretely cut in the tutti passages. I’ll try to find out more about exactly what the composer intended.