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A fascinating new name bursts into our Romantic Piano series with the two concertos by Thomas Tellefsen, here coupled with an extended concert piece by series stalwart Friedrich Kalkbrenner. All three works here enjoy Howard Shelley’s trademark dexterity and exuberant bravura technique. At first glance, there appears to be no connection between Thomas Dyke Acland Tellefsen and Friedrich Wilhelm Michael Kalkbrenner, beyond the fact that both made their homes in Paris. The former was Norwegian, born in 1823, the latter German, born nearly four decades earlier. But in fact there is a link, albeit a tenuous one: Tellefsen had lessons from Kalkbrenner. The younger composer had arrived in Paris in 1841 with the express intention of studying with Chopin, a privilege for which he had to wait two and a half years. During this period, he studied first with Charlotte Thygeson, a Norwegian pupil of Kalkbrenner, and then, from 1843, somewhat unenthusiastically, with Kalkbrenner himself. When Tellefsen finally won an introduction to Chopin (through Henri de Latouche, a literary friend of George Sand) in December 1844, Chopin greeted him with the words (according to Tellefsen): ‘Vous êtes un peu schwärmerisch, mais c’est bien, comme tous les gens du Nord’ (‘You are a bit gushy, like all northerners, but that’s fine’). From that time onwards, Tellefsen’s life revolved around Chopin: he received three lessons a week (two of them for no fee), became his friend and one of his copyists, and later accompanied him on his final, fatal tour of Britain in 1849. Kalkbrenner had offered to teach Chopin when the young Pole first arrived in Paris in 1831. Famously (and fortuitously), the offer was politely declined, though Chopin and Kalkbrenner remained on friendly terms, an affection reflected by the dedication of the former’s E minor piano concerto to him. So the three works presented here have strong personal connections: Kalkbrenner knew Chopin knew Tellefsen knew Kalkbrenner.