Johann Baptist Cramer: Piano Concerto No.2, in D minor, Op.16, Howard Shelley (piano, conductor)

Описание: Johann Baptist Cramer - Piano Concerto No.2 in D minor, Op.16, Howard Shelley (piano/conductor), London Mozart Players
I. Allegro non tanto – 00:00
II. Andante cantabile – 12:28
III. Rondo: Allegretto – 18:23

Johann (sometimes John) Baptist Cramer (24 February 1771 – 16 April 1858) was an English pianist and composer, the most well-known of a German family of musicians originally from Mannheim. He was the son of Wilhelm Cramer, a famous London violinist and conductor, one of a numerous family who were identified with the progress of music during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Cramer was regarded as one of the finest pianists of his day, a view held (according to Ries) by Beethoven. As Moscheles noted, Cramer's expressive and widely admired legato 'almost transforms a Mozart Andante into a vocal piece'.
He was a prolific composer of nearly seventy-five opus numbers (and many pieces published without numberings) comprising 124 sonatas, a pair each of piano quartets and quintets, 9 piano concertos, and an extensive number of works for piano solo, including etudes, nocturnes, divertimentos, capriccios, rondos, fantasias, impromptus, variations, and preludes. He is best known for his Studio per il Pianoforte, a two-volume set of forty-two etudes each, published in 1804 and 1810 respectively, extensively used in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Cramer's compositions are generally regarded as conservative, marked by a high degree of 'grace, elegance and clarity'. He apparently liked to regard himself as a “latter-day Mozartean'. However, as Jerald Graue noted, 'the originality of his genius appears principally in his combination of a conservative bias with the more advanced, idiomatically pianistic passage-work'. There is evidence that Beethoven borrowed from Cramer's sonatas, and Schumann regarded Cramer and Moscheles as the sole outstanding composers of sonatas of their generation.
Cramer's nine piano concertos were composed as performance vehicles for himself.
The early Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 16 (published in 1797) is contemporaneous with Beethoven's first two. Like them, Cramer's concerto stays quite close to the format established by Mozart, with a bit more freedom in the key structure of the opening ritornello of the first movement.