Reinecke Piano Concertos: Callaghan/Hyperion

[Mark Thomas]

It can also be heard on YouTube here, for those like me who are curious but don't want to duplicate the full concertos in their collections.

[Alan Howe]

I don't care about this, to be honest. And I don't think this is a patch on the much better recorded cpo set anyway. But others may disagree...

[Mark Thomas]

I do agree and that's why I was happy to have the opportunity to hear the extra track on YouTube. Curiosity satisfied.

[Alan Howe]

Yes, it's good to hear this alternative ending. However, the problem remains with this new recording: the orchestra simply isn't good enough. So: I personally would stick with cpo for the Reinecke and Danacord for the Sauer.

[Mark Thomas]

That's exactly what I've done.

[FBerwald]

I don't think so - at least, I certainly hope not. It is worth remembering that the Reinecke disks were scheduled for recording a while before Hyperion sold out to Universal. I will try to contact Simon Perry soon by telephone (if I can) and have a chat with him.
Simon Callaghan too might be able to tell me if he has been contracted to record any more for the RPC series.

Hi Gareth, have you got any more news on whether the RPC series will continue? Simon Callaghan, replied to me on facebook that although he doesn't know, they are all waiting to see what happens next. 

[Gareth Vaughan]

That's about it, I'm afraid. No more news. We just have to wait and see. I haven't been able to contact Simon Perry because I haven't been able to get through to Hyperion: the new Universal number just goes to an answering machine. Typical, useless and unsurprising. But I shall keep trying.

[Alan Howe]

I feel pessimistic about Hyperion's future, I have to admit.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Nil desperandum, Alan. It's not over until the fat lady sings, even though we can maybe hear her warming up in her dressing room.

[FBerwald]

I guess it's final! The Romantic Piano Concerto series from Hyperion is officially over. Slated for APRIL 2026, release is the first of 2 boxsets [50 Cd's each]. 1st one including Volumes 1[Moszkowski 2 & Paderewski] - 43[Bennett 4 & Bache] that make up 44 discs - the rest 6 are
Chopin - 2 PC's - Nikolai Demidenko
Scriabin & Tchaikovsky 1 - Nikolai Demidenko
Chopin - other concertante works - Garrick Ohlsson
Brahms 2 - Marc-André Hamelin
Rachmaninov - 4 PC's - Stephen Hough.
I believe the 2nd set will also contain 50 Cd's.
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDS44701/50
Reading the booklet notes by Mike Spring, there seems to be no doubt that there will be no further chapters of this amazing adventure. End of an Era! I knew this was coming, nevertheless I'm sad.

[Jonathan]

I agree, it is sad.

[tpaloj]

That's very sad news. There could easily have been another 20 discs, and more. This had always been my favorite series released from Hyperion.

[Mark Thomas]

When one of the "majors" takes over a niche label like Hyperion, all they are really interested in doing is exploiting its back catalogue. That costs them next to nothing, unlike recording new releases.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Precisely, Mark. I am not at all surprised. Good bye, Hyperion. It was really great knowing you. We must look in future to the likes of CPO, Capriccio and Toccata for challenging repertoire. Naxos, happily, still produce interesting fare too.

[tuatara442442]

This is the series that played a decisive role in leading me into the area of unsung classical music. It revealed so many relatively unknown composers to me, enabled me to create a web of relationships in a musical scene of a period in my mind, and to discover other unsung composers through these new nodes.