Classical

Lots of the interesting rarities that make it onto disc nowdays are still largely excluded from the concert hall

Lots of the interesting rarities that make it onto disc nowdays are still largely excluded from the concert hall. Most of the works in Hyperion's much-praised Romantic Piano Concerto CD series is a case in point. Next Friday's free BBC invitation concert with the Ulster Orchestra offers one of the pieces from the Hyperion series - Arensky's Fantasia on Russian Themes - as part of a retrospective, all1899 programme. The Arensky is lined up with the Variations on a Hungarian Air by the bright young English talent, William Hurlstone, a pupil of Stanford who died in 1906 at the age of 30, and a Suite de ballet by Holst, written when The Planets weren't even twinkling in his mind's eye. To round off the evening there's Sibelius's ever-popular First Symphony. Stephen Coombs is the soloist in the Arensky and the concert is conducted by Belfast's own Kenneth Montgomery (left).

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan

Michael Dervan is a music critic and Irish Times contributor