William Sterndale Bennett - Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 1 (1832)

Sir William Sterndale Bennett (13 April 1816 – 1 February 1875) was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. By the age of twenty, he had begun to make a reputation as a concert pianist, and his compositions received high praise. Among those impressed by Bennett was the German composer Felix Mendelssohn, who invited him to Leipzig. There Bennett became friendly with Robert Schumann, who shared Mendelssohn's admiration for his compositions. Bennett spent three winters composing and performing in Leipzig.

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Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 1 (1832)

I. Allegro con brio (0:00)
II. Andante sostenuto (12:10)
III. Finale. Presto (Scherzo) (19:52)

Malcolm Binns, piano and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Braithwaite

Among Bennett's student compositions were a piano concerto (No. 1 in D minor, Op. 1), a symphony and an overture to The Tempest. The concerto received its public premiere at an orchestral concert in Cambridge on 28 November 1832, with Bennett as soloist. Performances soon followed in London and, by royal command, at Windsor Castle, where Bennett played in April 1833 for King William IV and Queen Adelaide. The RAM published the concerto at its own expense as a tribute. A further London performance was given in June 1833. The critic of The Harmonicon wrote of this concert:

[T]he most complete and gratifying performance was that of young Bennett, whose composition would have conferred honour on any established master, and his execution of it was really surprising, not merely for its correctness and brilliancy, but for the feeling he manifested, which, if he proceed as he has begun, must in a few years place him very high in his profession.