Volume 20 of our Romantic Piano Concerto series features Ignaz Brull's two Piano Concertos and the Andante and Allegro, Op 88. The first of the concertos was amazingly composed when Brull was just 15, the second when he was 22. A very well respected pianist, Brull was noted for his sympathetic insight into the essence of a work, which only a virtuoso who is a creative artist can possess. Colleagues such as Franz Liszt, Anton Rubenstein and Clara Schumann, as well as many critics, regarded him as one of the leading exponents of his craft. As a composer, he stood firmly within the tradition of the conservative, Classical school. In the language of the time, this tradition was described as being 'in the direction of Schumann and Mendelssohn'. Its most distinguishing features were a clear awareness of form based on Classical models, and a measured form of expression which shunned excess and exaggeration. The Andante and Allegro and First Piano Concerto here receive their first recordings.