Sterndale Bennett: Piano Sonata - Schumann: Etudes symphoniques / Hiroaki Takenouchi

For several years now, Hiroaki Takenouchi had been keen to champion the music of a major Romantic composer, William Sterndale Bennett – an English virtuoso pianist, born in 1816, and considered one of the most captivating virtuosos in his time. Here, Takenouchi chooses one of what are indisputably Sterndale Bennett’s most accomplished scores, the Piano Sonata in F minor Op. 13, dedicated to Mendelssohn: the work unveils a romantic ballad tone, which is both exciting and genuinely exhilarating, like the great scores of Mendelssohn or Schumann. To complete his programme Takenouchi offers one of the latter’s masterpieces for piano, Symphonic Etudes (1834) and dedicated to Sterndale Bennett.