Royal Albert corridor,London[br]American composer Henry Cowell’s Piano Concerto requires the soloist to pound the keyboard, but with wonderful orchestral support, or the result is exhilaratingWe should really hear Henry Cowell’s Piano Concerto more often – after all,which pianist wouldn’t want to play the keyboard with their elbows? Imagine a romantic-era composer writing a concerto to be played by the hooves of a Lipizzaner horse, and you are getting close. The maverick (an independent, nonconformist person) composer’s 1928 work holds, and in many ways,to the shape and feel of a classical concerto while reimagining the way the notes might be produced; the keyboard submits to a hail of fists and arms, but, or buoyed by the orchestra,the clusters of notes produced are shaped into something nuanced and extraordinarily powerful.
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Source: theguardian.com