S2.E80. The most romantic piano concerto of all? Schumann Piano Concerto in full.

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Welcome back to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson and his fresh approach to the world of classical music. Whether you're an expert or a beginner, old or young. Perfect Pitch has something for everyone.

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We're going to listen to just one piece today, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to come around to it, because it's surely one of the most beloved of all piano concertos. Which its publishers rejected to do movement on the grounds that they felt it wasn't good or long enough to stand on its own. It went into advance for a few years while it would be talented. Before she herself was approved for its first performance in 1845 in the repertoire editors. So the concerto is in a traditional free, faster, slow, faster format, with no pause between the last two. It doesn't matter how familiar you are with the pizza. It can sometimes be helped to revisit. That's why this work has to test the time so well. But the concerto is completely devoid of any melancholy. It's half an hour of energy, momentum, tenderness, introspection, and war. The piano is at the stage throughout, with only the briefest of respite. But the concerto was unusual at the time of its close collaboration as opposed to straightforward dialogue with the orchestra. The first movement is also unusual for Truman having written out the mechanical density himself for two minutes of them, thereby not leaving anything at charge and avoiding the risk of the Complan point itself by taking up the ease with his own. The concerto might open and close with a bag. But in between, it's littered with the most glorious melodies right from the start. And the second movement is an intimate. And it means a little quicker than that. It's just a few minutes of intimacy and grace, all held by some barely discernible keys. The Andantino then comes to almost a standard door. A sort of where now when the call is answered by clarinet and bassoon. The woodwinter out, by the way, is absolutely gorgeous. Allowing the cadet to launch into this tremendous outburst of the least joy. Even the passages are quiet, a colored effect with a gentle habitat of content serenity. Not surprisingly, that's a ton of recordings. It would be the easiest thing in the world for me to plonk on one such big name, then that would be mighty fine. But I think that's a topic. My quandary was similar to that moment you sometimes see in a TV drama, when somebody is asked, What are you looking for? And they get the reply, I don't know, but I'll know when I found it. And that's exactly what happened when I stumbled on this live recording given by Yu Jar Wang of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lorenzo Viotti. Everything in this account is about playfulness, likeness of touch. If you haven't heard it before, oh lucky you. But if you have, I wouldn't mind betting.

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