The Romantic Piano Concerto Vol.63;

Howard Shelley directs the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra from the piano in this latest volume of The Romantic Piano Concerto series. We have reached Volume 63 and the works of French composer Benjamin Godard, a figure who is almost totally forgotten today. He is described by Jeremy Nicholas in his booklet note as, ''a composer who combines the sentimental melodic appeal of Massenet with the fecundity and technical facility of Saint-Saens.'' Among Godard's oeuvre, much of the enormous amount of music he produced followed in the tradition of Mendelssohn and Schumann. With the emergence of more innovative composers, Godard's conservative idiom meant his reputation faded before his early death in 1895. However, in the three works presented here his writing for the piano exceeds the technical range of his two idols, and is often reminiscent of the bravura demands found in the concertos of Liszt and Rubinstein.