HAYDN, Franz Joseph (1732-1809)
Piano Concerto in D major, Hob XVIII/11 (ca. 1782)
1.	Vivace	7:18
2.	Un poco Adagio	8:38
3.	Rondo all'Ungarese. Allegro assai	4:45
Piano Concerto in F major, Hob XVIII/3 (ca. 1766)
4.	Allegretto	9:48
5.	Largo	6:36
6.	Presto	4:20
KUHN, Max (1896-1994)
Concierto de Tenerife for Piano & Large Orchestra (1961/2)
7.	Allegro moderato	5:36
8.	Moderato	5:28
9.	Allegretto (Rondo)	6:14

Joseph Haydn’s keyboard concertos - around a dozen have survived - form only a small part of his otherwise immense oeuvre. The reasons for this are to be found not least in Haydn’s career. He earned his living primarily as a court musician in the employ of a prince who preferred the baryton to the piano. Furthermore, Haydn was not a professional concert pianist as was Mozart. His piano concertos are thus occasional works, though - as can be heard on this CD - they have by no means deserved their resultant shadowy existence. The Concerto in F Major (Hob. XVIII/3) was composed in around 1766, though it was not published until 1787, when Le Duc of Paris brought out a (faulty) edition. The score was not published until 1958. The D Major Concerto (Hob. XVIII/11) enjoyed eight editions in Haydn’s lifetime, in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and elsewhere, though it fell into relative obscurity after the composer’s death. It finally regained a measure of recognition in the 20th century, though mostly with piano teachers and their students. However, it really belongs in the concert hall, where its transparency of form and texture and its youthful vigour cannot but impress. Its last movement is a masterly example of Haydn’s ‘Hungarian’ manner, though the theme itself is in fact supposed to have been of Bosnian origin. Haydn’s own cadenzas for the D Major Concerto have survived; those used here in the F Major Concerto were improvised by Warren Thew during the present recording itself, as was his custom.

Max Kuhn was born in Zurich on 28 April 1896. He studied from 1920 to 1921 with Volkmar Andreae and with Philipp Jarnach and Reinhold Laquai (both pupils of Busoni) at the Zurich Conservatory. Afterwards, Kuhn studied further in Vienna and in Basle, taking conducting lessons from Felix Weingartner. After completing his studies, Kuhn was active in Zurich for several decades as composer, organist, pianist, conductor and teacher. From 1956 to 1975 he was on the staff of the Zurich Music Academy. In 1940, Kuhn was instrumental in founding the Mozart Society in Zurich. From 1991 until his death on 7 February 1994, Kuhn lived in Ascona.

Max Kuhn’s oeuvre covers most genres: stage works, orchestral music, song cycles, down to miniatures for piano (a representative selection of his works is to be heard on Guild Music CD 7153). The Concierto de Tenerife for piano and large orchestra is Kuhn’s only concerto. The composer wrote the following about his work: ‘My Piano Concerto was written in 1961-2 on Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. This volcanic island, rich in subtropical vegetation and in places almost pre-historic in appearance, had a major influence on the colour and substance of the work. The first movement, whose material (except for the lyrical second subject) is generated by the three-bar principal theme, is dramatic in manner and leads into the broadly-conceived second movement, whose basic mood could best be described as ‘prehistoric/biblical’. The canon-like treatment of the principal voices, and the broad, melodic cantilena of the cellos with their almost archaic accompaniment by the harp, together try to convey something of the beauty and isolation of this island that is so rich in contrasts. A Spanish, dance-like element comes to the fore in the Rondo, whose theme is derived from an inversion of the principal theme of the first movement.’
Kuhn largely eschews virtuosity in his concerto, aiming instead at a dialogue between the solo instrument and the orchestra. The principal weight of the concerto lies in the middle movement. Here, as always in Kuhn’s music, one has ample opportunity to admire the composer’s contrapuntal mastery, but the technical devices are never a mere means to an end. Here one can hear above all Kuhn’s ‘particularly lyrical talent’ that was so praised by Willi Schuh.

The Concerto’s first performance took place on 17 November 1964 in Zurich. Bärbel Andreae - who had long promoted Kuhn’s work - played the solo part. The Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra was conducted by Jean-Marie-Auberson. This work is undoubtedly one of Kuhn’s strongest, and was received with unanimous praise from the critics. The Neue Zürcher Nachrichten praised its ‘clarity and transparence’, while the Neue Zürcher Zeitung stressed its ‘compositional perfection’. Two years later, on 23 March 1966, Bärbel Andreae played the concerto under the composer’s baton in Santa Cruz, the town where it had been written. Warren Thew, another pianist who was devoted to Kuhn’s piano music, also performed the concerto several times, and recorded it in 1976. It is this recording that is brought out here for the first time on CD.Dr. Chris Walton