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Breathtaking?  Darn, now I have to order it😁!

This series is entitled "Beethoven's World" and by focusing on unsung contemporaries of the Great Man, should provide general listeners with some context in this anniversary year.  The first in the series was the excellent Sony disc of 2 Clement violin concertos.  I believe the violinist on that disc, Mirijam Contzen, will also appear in the Hummel double concerto.  The Eberl pieces are both very strong, with the double concerto full of structural surprises.  Incidentally, Eberl seems to have played it once on tour with a 14 year old Meyerbeer, according to the notes for its first (cpo) recording.

Coming in concert from the good people at Bru Zane on June 25, 2020.  This will be the original 1857 version with some additions from the 1875 revision.  They will also publish the score and parts.  No mention of a recording, though.  Personally, I'd like to see a resurrection of Thomas' last opera "Francoise de Rimini" but I'll take what I can get from this fine composer.  The cast is first-rate and includes Jodie Devos and Karine Deshayes.

No offense intended  .  The music was just as good 25 years ago when Jed Distler told me I should be listening to it, the loss was mine.

Verrry nice.  Thanks for the heads up.

I was never among the Alkan faithful, but this disc has converted me.  I find myself listening over and over again to Wee's brilliant traversal of the vast, astonishing first movement of the concerto.  Playing (and composing) of the highest order.   If you love Chopin and Liszt, this is for you.    David

York Bowen's violin concerto is a big, wonderful piece, one of his best, imho.  It doesn't hurt that the Dutton recording features fabulous playing by Lorraine McAslan.

Needles in the library stacks...

I've spent the last 2 Monday afternoons at nypl, lincoln center with mixed results.  The first week they couldn't find the Nicholl Collection at all...just the 2 boxes already mentioned: one contains photocopies of Nicholl's scrapbooks and the other contains a set of individual orchestra parts for the Second Symphony.  Later that evening a librarian emailed me the hopeful news that they had found the collection.  It had never made it into the online catalogue, but could still be found in the large black volumes (no. 27 to be precise) of what is known as the Dictionary Catalogue.  The Nicholl manuscripts had not been sent to offsite storage in New Jersey (like the 2 boxes) but were actually only yards away from the Special Collections reading room where I was. I returned last Monday, now armed with call letters, and requested the 2piano score and the full score.  Alas. The 2 piano score appeared, but not the full score.  The 'new' page could not find it.  So they started a search, and promised to get back to me.  So far, no news.  Sorry there is nothing more positive to report at the moment.  Oddly, I thought, they had no problem with me photographing the ms with the somewhat limited capacity of my iphone...  best, David

I will try to go over there next Monday.  I'll also look through my notes for some call numbers.  Part of the problem may be that when Mrs Nicholl gave her late husband's manuscripts, scrapbooks etc to nypl in the 20s, they were bound (yoiks!) and eventually assigned to the research division.  Then most were moved to the Americana Collection.  Several of the scores, the piano concerto included, are very fragile and need to be disbound, but the paper is so fragile that I always avoided the concerto as i was afraid of damaging it, with paper loss and actual loss of musical material a real possibility.  I have seldom been to the music division in the last 20 years, so i imagine much is changed.  In the 80s i copied many things by hand...a set of parts for the string quartet, the first movement of the piano trio, the big Prelude and Double Fugue for piano "For Love is Strong as Death" which I hoped MLB would play (she never did).  Oi.  David.

From a William Sherwood letter (Sherwood played the concerto twice in Pittsburgh in 1888):    "...the concerto of [Nicholl's] which I once learned is in all respects the equal of any modern concerto I have yet heard since Chopin and Schumann.  It is a work of the highest rank among modern compositions of its class.  My assertion that it is worthy of Bach or Brahms is founded upon a thorough study of its contents, which, both for the beauty and dignity of its themes, and their masterly development, as well as the artistic  structure of the composition, fully justifies such a statement.  When I first examined the concerto, I could see it was a work written by a man of wonderful technical skill, and after weighing its difficulties decided to seriously study the work.  I have discovered the mine of wealth it embraces. If any fault can be found ...it is because of its too sustained elevation and its coherent qualities, for the subjects are so welded together, entwined and interwoven, and each moment is so gradually and yet interestingly developed, that the subjects (or motives) are never lost sight of, on which account there are no resting places as in works of the same character  which are more rhapsodic.  Therefore, after seriously studying the concerto in all its aspects, I do not hesitate to boldly and openly affirm that it is a truly great work, worthy, I may repeat, of Bach or Brahms."

The full score and a 2 piano reduction are most definitely at nypl, lincoln center.

I gave Mary Louise Boehm several Nicholl piano works but don't remember her programming any of them with the exception of the Nocturne in C, published in St Louis in 1870.   She was fond of this piece and performed it several times.

 Nicholl's op.2 is 3 Songs.  These date from 1875-79 and were published separately.

For Giles' list:   Violin Sonata in D major, op.21 (1891); Trio for piano, violin, cello in b minor op. 34 (1901); 3 pieces for viola and piano, op.44 (my notes indicate that 1 and 2 are not extant, but no details); Six Short Melodic Studies for harmonium and piano op.43 (published Leipzig 1902)