Aline van Barentzen plays Manen Piano Concerto Op.30

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A 1965 French broadcast recording of Aline van Barentzen playing the Piano Concerto Op.30 of Christian Manen, with Pierre Dervaux conducting the ORTF Symphony.

Barentzen was born in the US (her real name was Aline Hoyle) but trained in France, where she lived for much of her life as both a performer and teacher (Jean-Philippe Collard and Cyprien Katsaris are among her pupils). She recorded quite extensively since the 1920s though until recently many of these accounts remained absent from the catalogue.

She put on disc relatively few works for piano and orchestra - she stepped in for Ricardo Viñes to set down the first Falla Nights in the Gardens of Spain in 1928 and also recorded both the Choros No.5 and Choros No.11 by Villa-Lobos in 1958 - so any performance of this fine pianist playing with orchestra is of great interest.

This Manen Piano Concerto is still little-known today (it was written in 1957 and premiered in 1964 - the composer died in 2020) but is a pleasant listen, reminiscent at times of Debussy's rarely-played Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra and d'Indy's Symphony on a French Mountain Air.

As always, Barentzen plays with a beautiful tonal palette, transparent textures, and tremendous vitality, wonderfully supported by Devraux and the orchestra.

This upload was prepared courtesy of Past Daily, with audio provided from their excellent website:

https://pastdaily.com/2022/03/13/aline-van-barentzen-music-manen-1965/

Видео Aline van Barentzen plays Manen Piano Concerto Op.30 канала The Piano Files