In 1991, Hyperion launched its Romantic Piano Concerto series with the piano concertos of Moszkowski and Paderewski as its first recordings. Paderewski's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 17, is chronologically the older of the two works, although it was written by the younger of the two composers. Paderewski, born in November 1860 in Kurylówka in the Russian-Polish Governorate of Podolia, was a virtually unknown 28-year-old when he composed his only concerto.
The music world often views Moritz Moszkowski with skepticism. His name is easily associated with the derogatory label of a "slick salon music composer"; he added nothing new to the musical vocabulary and wrote nothing that others hadn't composed before and better. But are these reasons sufficient to ignore the fluid, joyful, and exuberant brilliance of Moszkowski's music?
A spectacular concert in Paris in March 1888 and another in Vienna in November of the same year marked the beginning of Paderewski's career as a performer. This career led to his name becoming synonymous with piano music, and he achieved near-legendary status during his lifetime. His other large-scale work for piano and orchestra is the Polish Fantasy, Op. 19, composed approximately five years later.
Although Paderewski had already made his debut at the tender age of 11, his true solo career as a pianist only began in his mid-twenties, after intensive study with the great pedagogue Theodor Leschetizky. The fluid, joyful brilliance of Moszkowski's music is often overlooked, and few pianists dare to study his entertaining Piano Concerto.