Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 18- Korngold: Piano Concerto / Marx: Romantisches Klavierkonzert
The Korngold on this disc is another of those works composed for Paul  Wittgenstein, the one-armed pianist who was also the dedicatee of Ravel's Piano  Concerto in D for the Left Hand, Prokofiev's Fourth, and many other fine works.  We owe Wittgenstein a major debt because, although he was a pretty awful pianist  (and could seldom play the pieces he commissioned), he certainly got major  composers to put out some of their best efforts for him! Korngold brought all of  his orchestral wizardry to bear on this sumptuous score--one of his biggest and  boldest. Joseph Marx'sRomanticConcerto, for two (very busy) hands, is a  knockout too. Marc André Hamelin, one of the greatest keyboard virtuosos, makes  playing each of these impossible works seem like a piece of cake.--David  Hurwitz