John Ireland: Piano Concerto / Legend / Rhapsody / A Sea Idyll

Release Date: 10/2011

John Ireland’s radiant Piano Concerto was written for his protégée Helen Perkin, and is infused with her sense of vitality. The result is a brilliant work of high spirits and expressive longing. Perkin also premièred Legend, a dark, brooding evocation of the ancient landscape of Harrow Hill on the Sussex Downs. Of the solo piano works, the First Rhapsody is earlier, virtuosic, and in the Lisztian tradition, whereas Indian Summer is a rural postcard of beguiling simplicity.

'John Lenehan is again at his finest here. …the RLPO is on first-class form under the understanding direction of John Wilson. A CD not to be missed by all lovers of English music' Gramophone