CD REVIEW - MACDOWELL
PIANO CONCERTO No.1, etc. Wang/BBC Phil./Wilson
CHANDOS CHAN 20305 [61’02”]

No doubt we will be thinking about the USA at the start of the new year and what the inauguration of President Trump might mean for all of us. So, it is appropriate that Chandos should release the first in a new series devoted to orchestral works by the American composer and pianist Edward Alexander MacDowell (b New York City 1860, d New York City 1908).

The centrepiece of the album is his Concerto No.1 for Piano and Orchestra played with bravura by the highly regarded Xiayin Wang, born in Beijing but now a US citizen. It is only 20:06 minutes in length and, with the rest of the album being purely orchestral, this is another Wilson winner as he presides over a peak performance by the celebrated BBC Philharmonic, led by Yuri Torchinsky, recorded at MediaCityUK, Salford Quays, Manchester.

There are a couple of symphonic poems: Lancelot und Elaine and Lamia, inspired by Tennyson and Keats respectively – Mervyn Cooke tells the full stories in his booklet notes – Two Fragments after 'The Song of Roland' and the piece that made MacDowell known throughout the world: To a Wild Rose from 'Woodland Sketches'. It was written for the piano in 1895 but played here in a 1919 arrangement for string orchestra by Victor Herbert.

While not light music as we know it but lightish; with its first rate playing I found it an agreeable listen and look forward to Vol.2, which I hope may contain what is reckoned to be the composer's most successful longer work: Piano Concerto No.2.

© Peter Burt, December 2024