Howard Shelley and the orchestra take the listener on an emotional journey

Shelley tucks into the solo part [of the First Concerto] with almost nonchalant ease, alive to every colour change as Franz Xaver darts momentarily into minor keys…the delightfully capricious rondo finale is given with tremendous élan…[he finds] a superb translucency [in the Second Concerto] even at the lowest register. He brings a real poignancy to the halting, minor-key slow movement, while the finale is brought to life with an unobtrusive felicity

All three works receive splendid advocacy from Howard Shelley (a stalwart of Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series, and also a tireless champion of Clementi’s solo piano music) and the incisive St Gallen Symphony Orchestra, who offer especially piquant wind playing and some delightfully teasing rubato as the theme reappears time and again in the Rondo finale of the E flat concerto.

His first piano concerto, from 1809, is a homage to Mozart senior’s Viennese concertos; bursting with sparkling pianism and delightful, lyrical themes, it could almost be an exercise in clever pastiche. The second, however, is more distinctly his own; noble and broad in conception with some bravura writing for the soloist, engagingly played here by the admirable Howard Shelley.

[these concertos are] handled with dexterity by Howard Shelley and the Swiss St Gallen orchestra alike