William Sterndale Bennett: Complete Piano Concertos – Malcolm Binns

Bennett’s first three piano concertos were composed at a rate of one a year, in 1832, 1833 and 1834, each one being started during his summer vacation and completed during the Autumn term at the Royal Academy of Music. The First Concerto made such an impact that Bennett was invited to perform it before King William IV and Queen Adelaide at Windsor Castle. Following his habit of beginning the composition of a new piano concerto during the quieter months of the Summer, the Piano Concerto No. 4 in F minor, op. 19, was composed during the Summer of 1838. In July Bennett wrote to both Mendelssohn and the Concert Director at the Gewandhaus that he had composed a new concerto expressly for performance at the Gewandhaus when he next visited Germany. The first performance took place in London on 26 September before a small audience at the RAM, with the slow movement a revised version of ‘A Stroll through the Meadows’, which had originally been composed for his earlier F minor Concerto (numbered in modern times no. 5).