Forthcoming from Etcetera, a potentially interesting release including music by Peter Benoit, Charles Louis Hanssens, Philippe Vanden Berghe, and Jean Vanderheyden - mostly first recordings. I'm only familiar with Benoit.
Au Clair de La Lune - Flemish Romantic Piano Music (https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9384796--au-clair-de-la-lune-flemish-romantic-piano-music#about)
What a pity there are no sound samples. It looks promising.
I haven't heard of Vanden Berghe or Vanderheyden, but several works by Hanssens may have been uploaded here awhile ago. (There may be two composers- possibly father and son or otherwise relatives? - by that name, so it's also possible that the works I think I've heard, a violin concerto and symphony iirc, are by a different Hanssens.) Is that Benoit 4th fantasy a work that's also been recorded on Marco Polo?
(Hanssens: "Charles-Louis-Joseph Hanssens, known under the name Hanssens the elder (4 May 1777 – 6 May 1852)" -- and his -nephew- "Charles-Louis Hanssens" (1802-1871). The latter is "at issue" here, and I think in most recordings I've heard so far, but maybe not all...)
Here's (https://www.svm.be/nieuws/vers-van-de-pers-au-clair-de-la-lune-flemish-romantic-piano-music) another description of the CD (albeit in Dutch), noting that the Hanssens is a piano concerto, arranged for sextet. Interesting.
Here's the arrangement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jn4_HYwdu4
Quote from: Alan Howe on Thursday 07 August 2025, 13:02Here's the arrangement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jn4_HYwdu4
Not sure why they record only the "arrangement", maybe that time the full orchestra version was not found. A unique work that combined 3 movements in one and starts with a slow movement.
Sidenote: A cello concerto and flute concerto was not recorded, and Hanssens was a cellist himself, judging from the quality of his violin concerto, these would be enjoyable.
There's been some recent republications of the music of one or both of them, including a string quartet (in C minor, possibly the one published as no.2 in C minor by Schott), ballet, Fantasy for violin and clarinet and orchestra, Fantasy for violin and orchestra (1836), Requiem (several of those by MPH).
The 82p (full?) manuscript score of the cello concerto is in the library of Hogeschool Gent. (The description- "for piano or orchestra" - suggests it might be a reduction, though.) The piano concerto "with accompaniment of quintet" is in the collection of the Bavarian Library. (Piano part digitized. (https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb00159765) ; Complete piano quintet arrangement parts digitized (https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb00159777). This appears to be the only work by Hanssens, Charles in the BSB library catalog...)
The full score of the cello concerto seems to be at KBR. It's possible that the piano concerto was conceived for string quintet accompaniment, I tend to doubt it, I don't see it at KBR but... They do have his 2nd quartet (https://uurl.kbr.be/1932882) in digitized published parts at KBR, btw...
Piano concerto full orchestral parts at Hogesch. Gent. Yes, for piano/orch not piano/quintet.