The practice of performing music on original instruments was once the exclusive domain of early music specialists who sought to revive the characteristic sounds of Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical instruments and ensembles scaled to proper size. The so-called "historically informed movement" eventually expanded into re-creating 19th century music, which yielded some ear-opening performances; but this practice soon began to overlap with modern interpretation and instrumentation, so the actual differences between period and modern strings or winds were minimal.

You're going to love this disc. It does everything this wonderful series of "Romantic Piano Concertos" is supposed to: present captivating repertoire in excellent performances. Christian Sinding was a notoriously spotty composer when working in large forms. After all, if you live well into your 80s writing tons of music along the way, but remain famous for one three-minute piano miniature ("Rustle of Spring"), then something's not right. That said, this youthful concerto offsets its tendency to ramble with an abundance of fresh, enjoyable tunes and fistfuls of pianistic fun and games. When the melodies are so attractive it's impossible to deny Sinding his right to dwell on them at length.