DUBOIS : Concerto-capriccioso • Concerto No 2 • Suite for piano & string orchestra (Cédric Tiberghien · BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra · Andrew Manze) (2013) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 60 | FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

This release is the 60th in an ongoing series, with no end in sight, devoted to the Romantic piano concerto. Hyperion has uncovered lots of music that can shake up the repertory of the same dozen concertos that get played and recorded repeatedly, and this outing contains music that's at least diverting and often more. Théodore Dubois was an established composer of his time, and thus was discarded when modernist orthodoxy required narratives of progress. But he was far from merely academic. The three works here span 40 years, and each treats inherited forms with an attractive freedom. The opening Concerto capriccioso in C minor of 1876 is the most conservative of the group, but its wandering slow introduction is languidly pleasant. The Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, from 1897, is in the Saint-Saëns orbit, but its four-movement form, with a fantasia rather than a triumphal flourish for its finale, is novel. Still more interesting is the Suite for piano and string orchestra, written in 1917 when Dubois was 80. It is quite a modern work, not harmonically but formally, breaking up the opposition between piano and orchestra in a series of small lyrical moments that bring to mind Milhaud or Poulenc. Would that every composer were so open to new influences at that age! French pianist Cédric Tiberghien gets the virtuosity level right (high, but never showy), and conductor Andrew Manze, stepping out of his Baroque field of specialty, gets properly clean, restrained results from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. A fine offbeat find for lovers of French music, although except in the final work Dubois is more Germanic than French. James Manheim  
Tracklist :
Concerto-Capriccioso In C Minor (1876)    16:18
Composed By – Théodore Dubois

Piano Concerto No 2 In F Minor (1897)    (27:59)
Composed By – Théodore Dubois

Suite For Piano And String Orchestra In F Minor (1917)    (21:05)
Composed By – Théodore Dubois
Credits :
Conductor – Andrew Manze
Leader – Laura Samuel
Orchestra – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Piano – Cédric Tiberghien

BÉLA BARTÓK : Mikrokosmos 6; Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs; Suite, Op. 14; Out of Doors; Three Burlesques (2016) FLAC (tracks), lossless

While Cédric Tiberghien's recordings consist mostly of Romantic piano music, with a strong representation of Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and Brahms, he has taken an avid interest in the modernist music of Béla Bartók, which he has been recording for Hyperion since 2014. This CD, the first of three albums devoted to the solo keyboard works, offers a broad sampling of compositions dating from 1908 to 1939, showing the diversity of styles, subjects, and techniques that preoccupied Bartók, not only in his piano pieces but also in his chamber and orchestral music. One of the most evocative pieces is "The night's music" (track eight) from Out of doors, an example of the eerie nocturnal effects that Bartók exploited in his other instrumental works, such as the String Quartet No. 5 and the Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta. Also notable is "A bit drunk" (track 26) from Three Burlesques, which is perhaps better known in its orchestrated version in Bartók's Hungarian Sketches. While the rest of the album is seemingly more technical and abstract, many of the pieces are infused with Hungarian and Bulgarian folk music and reveal the strong influence Bartók's musicological research had on his compositions. Tiberghien's playing is clean and energetic, and he has mastered the complexities of Bartók's rhythms and textures, which put this music in the virtuoso's repertoire. Hyperion's sound is clear but dry, which works quite well with Bartók's sharply accented music. by Blair Sanderson