HILL : Piano Concerto In A Major • Piano Sonata In A Major ♦ BOYLE : Piano Concerto In D Minor (Piers Lane · Adelaide Symphony Orchestra · Johannes Fritzsch) (2016) Serie The Romantic Piano Concerto – 69 | FLAC (tracks), lossless

Hyperion's survey of the Romantic piano concerto charges on with this, its 69th volume, devoted to a pair of Australian composers. Two of the three works here are receiving their first recordings, which may tell you that they fell out of the repertory quickly. The Piano Concerto in D minor of George Frederick Boyle was apparently the first such work by an Australian composer. It was written not in Oz, but America, where Boyle went on to teach at several top conservatories and numbered Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber among his students. Boyle studied with Busoni in Germany, but little of that composer's style is audible in this attractively textured, but conventional, three-movement concerto. More interesting is the sonata-concerto pair by Alfred Hill (1869-1960); the Piano Concerto in A major, of 1941, is a substantial reworking of the Piano Sonata in A major from the 1910s (which is interesting in itself). This work, too, is built on Romantic forms, but they're treated freely enough to hold your attention. Sample the opening movement of either work, where the slow introduction gives rise to the title "The Question" (it actually seems to contain questions and answers). Neither one of these works seems to be truly of the early 20th century, but the performances by Piers Lane and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra under Johannes Fritzsch are vivacious, and the album is both enjoyable and of interest to those intrigued by the history of Australian music. James Manheim  
Tracklist :
Piano Concerto in A major (26:02)
Composed By – Alfred Hill

Piano Concerto in D minor (28:47)
Composed By – George Frederick Boyle

Piano Sonata in A major (24:47)
Composed By – Alfred Hill

Credits :
Conductor – Johannes Fritzsch
Orchestra – Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Piano – Piers Lane