Broadly speaking Harty’s
small cache of orchestral works can
be located somewhere to the West of
Tchaikovsky. His works are wonderfully
well put together and Harty’s inspirations
are often convincing; witness the stamp
and elan of the Piano Concerto finale.
His masterwork is Ode to a Nightingale
of which the only recording (Chandos-
review)
has been made by Heather Harper and
the self-same Ulster Orchestra conducted
by Bryden Thomson.
The Comedy Overture
is all impudent effervescence,
Irish dreaminess and majestically sentimental
climaxes. The contrast between jackanapes
piccolo and full-bottomed bass is splendid.
The four colourful movements of the
Fantasy Scenes include
a pizzicato Dancer’s Reverie with
more than a nod towards Tchaikovsky
4, a Lonely in Moonlight which
owes a debt towards Mussorgsky’s Dawn
on the Moskva and the second movement
of Tchaikovsky 5 with its long-lined
French Horn solo. In the Slave Market
crosses Ispahan with a touch of
the Dublin pub. The Piano Concerto
combines the rugged and crystalline
strengths of Tchaikovsky 1 and Rachmaninov
1 and 2 (listen to the middle movement
at 3:40 and the finale at 2:44 and 8:00).
Closer to home let’s not forget the
Tchaikovskian Haydn Wood piano concerto
and the Stanford Second Concerto which
famously strikes its own stylistic parallels
with Rachmaninov. A toe-tapping, foot-stomping
Slavonic finale is regally confident
and confidently sentimental. Watch your
speed if you play this in the car on
the motorway. It’s one of my favourites
among piano concertos - easily as good
as the Arensky - another work I urge
you to hear if you don’t already know
it.
This is not the first
Harty disc in the Naxos stable. There’s
another (Irish Symphony, With
The Wild Geese, In Ireland)
with the National Symphony Orchestra
of Ireland and the conductor Proinssías
O Duinn. It’s similarly successful:-
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Feb01/harty.htm
http://www.musicweb.uk.net/classrev/2001/Mar01/Harty.htm
The Chandos box contains
all the most important works but omits
both the Fantasy Scenes and the
still unrecorded Whitman setting The
Mystic Trumpeter (baritone and orchestra).
Bryden Thomson conducts the Ulster Orchestra
in one of their finest hours. Chandos
recorded virtually all the orchestral
music and it’s reviewed here on: http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/oct00/harty.htm
This disc is not quite
as sumptuously recorded as the Chandos
box but there’s not that much in it.
In its own terms it sounds nothing short
of splendid.
Serious fans must get
the Chandos box but as a single disc
invitation card to the refulgent talent
of Hamilton Harty this Naxos CD is at
the top of the list. Hartyites must
have the Naxos because it includes the
first recording of the orchestral version
of the Fantasy Scenes.
Rob Barnett
Piano Concerto in B minor (1922) [30:05] 
