Adolf von Henselt: Piano Concerto | The Orchestra Now

Pianist Evren Ozel and The Orchestra Now (TŌN), conducted by Leon Botstein, perform Adolf von Henselt's Piano Concerto in a livestreamed concert from the Fisher Center at Bard on Feb 11, 2023.
ton.bard.edu
0:45 Allegro (fast)
16:16 Larghetto (fairly slow)
24:58 Allegro agitato (fast and hurried)
Adolf von Henselt
Born: 5/9/1814 in Schwabach, Germany
Died: 10/10/1889 at age 75 in Warmbrunn, Germany (now Cieplice Śląskie-Zdrój, Poland)
Written: mid 1840s, in Henselt’s early 30s
Premiered: 1844; Clara Schumann, piano
Concert notes by TŌN keyboard player Ji Hea Hwang at ton.bard.edu/adolf-von-hensel....

[@evrenozelpiano]

Thank you all for your kind and generous comments! This was an extremely challenging concerto to learn but it was a thrilling experience to play it with TON and Maestro Botstein!

[@peterirons9773]

Perhaps if you didn't know you could imagine it was a lost work of Chopin

[@kamennikolov7560]

A great concert that should be performed more often in concert halls. Well done to the Evren Oze.

[@4candles]

Huge applause for resurrecting Henselt's rarely heard concerto into the concert hall! It's so good to see brave programming like this - and in such high quality too. I may wish for more fire and drive in the playing, like in Lewenthal's, Ponti's or Hamelin's recordings, but any rare concert outing for this and lesser-known concertos is a real coup, so I'm certainly not complaining! Bravo to pianist and ensemble alike, not to mention their maestro! And thank you for linking the programme notes too!

[@mulcio2500]

Happy to be the one here to praise this beautiful concert wich I learnt from Radio Stephansdom-Wien recently❤..thanks to the uploader

[@markandrews4797]

The Henselt is a concerto well known to concert pianists but little known to audiences because so rarely performed. Apparently, its popularity waned around the turn of the 20th century and pianists were not sorry to let it die a quiet death because of the enormous difficulties it presents. One theory I have read is that its virtual demise coincided with the advent of recording. You see, the Henselt is a very easy concerto to fake but a very hard concerto to perform as the composer wrote. It is conceivable that once recording techniques had been discovered pianistic faking could also be detected. How wonderful, therefore, that here we have a superb young pianist that not only plays all the notes that Henselt wrote but also with total engagement. The result is an interpretation that had me totally captivated throughout. Full congratulations also to the conductor and young orchestra who clearly, like the pianist, were totally committed to the music!

[@garethvaughan3727]

Lewenthal wrote somewhere that one of the problems with Henselt's concerto which may have contributed to its falling out of popularity with pianists is that its difficulties are not immediately obvious to the casual listener, so the poor pianist is working his/her socks off but the audience are not gasping in admiration at his/her technique!

[@user-pr3sm3tl5f]

This masterful concert was played masterfully. Finally something different than the old Beethoven Rachmaninof etc. that have already been played 1000 times ... tribute for this beautiful performance

[@watkinder8288]

I'd just like to say that this is the best performance I have ever heard of this concerto! I know of only three "official" recordings of it. What makes your performance so special is the sheer poetry of your playing. Obviously, I have no wish to belittle others in anyway, but the ones I am familiar with seem to treat the concerto purely as a virtuoso vehicle. In other words: "This is a really difficult piece, so let's show off the effort it took us to learn it by playing it even faster." Your performance shows that it is a big mistake to equate Henselt's piano style with the virtuoso approach of Liszt (although they were friends). Liszt wanted people to gasp at his showmanship. Henselt did not write piano music to make people "ooh and aah" but, like Chopin, to enthrall with its poetic imagination. In effect, this means that the complexities of this work are far less obvious than some of the more overtly "showy" piano concertos. But, Henselt wasn't about that and your incredibly insightful interpretation kept me totally engaged throughout. Congratulations😀

[@driemaaldrommels]

Bravo! This concerto deserves so much more attention! A forgotten gem!

[@erronblack5015]

Why exactly?

[@Pablo-gl9dj]

It's very difficult. If several big name (I wish they were also the best) pianists played this work regularly it would no doubt catch on.

[@benlindsay6012]

@@erronblack5015 Because Henselt's concerto is purported to be on a level with Tchaikovsky's 1st p. concerto (or others, like Brahms' 1st p. concerto (in d minor) and Beethoven's "Emperor" 5th p. concerto). That's why!

[@MrFartyman44]

I wish I could like this more than once. Thank you so much to the pianist and the orchestra for performing this piece.

[@classicallpvault8251]

The Henselt concerto is bizarrely difficult, yet also incredibly beautiful, and I applaud Mr. Ozel for being the brave soul who first recorded it on video. Excellent recording by the way, and that comes from someone who knows the versions by Raymond Lewenthal, Michael Ponti, and Marc-André Hamelin inside out.

[@johannbrandstatter7419]

The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College is a performance hall located in the Hudson Valley hamlet of Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. No need to mention this as at least 98 % of the savvy audience of that continent know this....

[@regisgranjon5896]

Très beau piano je ne connaissais pas ce musicien, le chef très élégants avec des gestes justes très bel ensemble très bon moment. J'aime beaucoup ce concerto.

[@enriquesanchez2001]

Have you see the piano score!? THIS is a gargantuan monster of a concerto! Evren Ozel was TERRIFIC ♥♥♥♥

[@philipseatoncomposer6890]

Bravo!

[@dannymillington3015]

Respect, young man. One of my favorite concertos. That last movement gets pretty hectic towards the end and you were on top of it. Well done and thank you!

[@njazijaaljusi684]

Predivno! Hvala promenadi radio Beograda, sto mi je preporucila ovaj koncert.

[@ciararespect4296]

So relaxed and poised at the piano. A great musician. Obviously started young with the best teachers. I played this with my school orchestra

[@pianomaly9]

OMG! Who was the soloist??

[@user-vc8im9uc5o]

It brings peerless joy to witness this outstanding performance of a magnificent concert, brought about by such young talents. The soloist's performance was impeccable even compared to the best known 70's recording. One wishes that Scharwenka no. 3 may follow some day.

[@stuartmclaren2402]

There are only a handful of concert pianists who can play this work. Even Rubinstein was beaten by it. A large hand is needed to span the notes. That is probably why the work is seldom performed. Congratulations to the pianist for mastering this work and for a fine interpretation. I remember attending a recital by the great virtuoso, Michael Ponti, who introduced this work through his premiere recording of this work.

[@marcorval]

Henselt was a big influence to Rachmaninov.

[@Chopinist2.0]

I wish i could find the full orchestral score of this

[@classicaloracle]

What a treat and a first to my knowledge. There has never been a previous video or film of a performance of this important and hugely challenging concerto. Bravo indeed! I speak as one who has conducted a performance and has known the work all my life. Thanks for posting!

[@JJTownley_Classical-Composer]

I never thought I'd hear this performed live. Notoriously difficult, gives the pianist lots of challenges though probably not as much as the Rach 3 which is played by everyone and their grandmother. I first got familiar with this concerto via Lewenthal's recording many years ago. I think Lewenthal was more responsible than anyone for bringing this gem to the consciousness of the public, pretty much forgotten before that recording. Still waiting to hear live performances of many "forgotten" concertos like the Brull Concerto No 2 in C, The Saint-Saens No 1 in D and the Reinecke No 1 in F# minor among many. Pianist Evren Ozel delivers an admirable performance. Fine pianist. I hope he becomes the next Michael Ponti or Frank Cooper and brings more of these forgotten masterpieces to the concert halls, although the costs these days of putting on such a piano concerto performance runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars in many cases. I know because I've priced out my own Piano Concerto No 2 in C Minor (here on KZbin in case anyone is curious) for a public performance and have gotten estimates on the low end of $100K and on the high end of $250K and that was 10 years ago. Must have doubled by now. It really helps to have a pianist like Mr. Ozel who knows the concerto already and can be invited to an established orchestra to play it in one of their subscription concerts. That greatly cuts down on the cost. Keep up the good work, Evren. You're extremely talented.

[@alkanliszt]

Lovely to have a video performance of this delightful concerto.