Pianist Hiroaki Takenouchi (featured in the critically acclaimed television documentary The Prince and the Composer) has recorded his first program for Dutton. He explores piano concertos by Georgy Catoire (1861-1926) and Percy Sherwood (1866-1939), two worthwhile but neglected contemporaries who came to musical maturity in the closing years of the nineteenth century. The Russian Catoire – who came into the circle of Tchaikovsky, Arensky and Lyadov – wrote in that glorious musical time in Russia before the dissolution of the Revolution, and it is remarkable that his heart-warming, lyrical Concerto of 1909 has been unrecorded until now. For all intents and purposes, the German-born Percy Sherwood was a late romantic composer, who made a significant career as both pianist and composer in Germany until 1914, but he died in London in June 1939. His output derives from the late-nineteenth century romantic tradition, a character particularly apparent in the gorgeous slow movement of his second concerto (1932-33).
