Beethoven:
Piano Concertos Nos. “0”-7; Rondo in B-flat, WoO 6. Michael Korstick, piano; ORF Vienna Radio Symphony
Orchestra conducted by Constantin Trinks. CPO. $33.99 (4 CDs).
The canonic Beethoven Five Piano Concertos are, it seems, less and less
likely to be deemed a complete set nowadays. The composer’s own adaptation of
the Violin Concerto, with its fascinating timpani-accompanied first-movement
cadenza, has moved from being a curiosity into a much more mainstream work. The
original B-flat rondo written for what is now known as Concerto No. 2 (the
first of the “canonic” group to be written, but the second to be published)
turns up with increasing frequency. The 1784 concerto in E-flat has been given
the number “0” and is accepted with that designation in much the same way that
Bruckner’s Symphony No. “0” has gained widespread acknowledgment. And
Beethoven’s last foray into the piano-concerto realm, a substantial (70-page)
but incomplete fragment in D that was first recorded by Sophie-Mayuko Vetter on
a fortepiano after being rendered performable through the efforts of Nicholas
Cook and Hermann Dechant, serves as a fascinating what-might-have-been
exploration of Beethoven’s pianistic thinking after the “Emperor” concerto.
(For that matter, the solo-piano and piano-and-orchestra elements of the Triple Concerto and Choral Fantasy represent yet more in this realm.)
The increasing acceptance of Beethoven as the composer of more than five
piano concertos has, unsurprisingly, produced a certain level of dispute and
confusion about everything from the choice of keyboard instrument to the numbering
of the non-canonic concerto material. For a new four-CD CPO release, Michael
Korstick and Constantin Trinks follow Carl Czerny in referring to the
arrangement of the Violin Concerto as “Piano Concerto No. 7,” a designation
that might seem reasonable if it were not for the fact that Czerny called the Triple Concerto No. 4 among the piano
concertos – so the G major concerto invariably referred to as No. 4 became, for
Czerny, No. 5, and the “Emperor” was labeled No. 6. The Kostick/Trinks
recording rather confusingly retains the “No. 7” designation for the
violin-concerto arrangement and uses “No. 6” to refer to the D major fragment
from 1815 – in that respect following the Vetter recording’s numbering for the
fragment, except that Vetter’s CD (on the Oehms label) did not include the
violin-concerto arrangement and could therefore dodge the whole “what number is
it?” issue.
Korstick plays the entirety of his cycle on a modern grand piano, a
historically inaccurate decision that nevertheless represents by far the most
common approach to the Beethoven piano-and-orchestra output. Korstick has
clearly thought carefully about the best way to handle the varying approaches
and moods of these works – in fact, he has made revisions of his own to the D
major fragment to make it, in his estimation, more playable and more in line
with what Beethoven might have done if he had finished the concerto (or even
the single movement). Everything Korstick does is pianistically sound, and the
1815 fragment contains a number of intriguing elements – although they would
probably not have survived in this form if Beethoven had finished the piece,
just as the few sketches of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 10 would almost certainly
not have remained in their existing form if the work had been completed.
Korstick and Trinks present all the concertos intelligently. The first
three discs are given over to the “canonic five” and the arrangement of the
Violin Concerto – which is placed between Nos. 4 and 5, where it belongs based
on its opus number and date of composition. The fourth disc functions as a sort
of appendix, including the 1784 concerto, the B-flat Rondo WoO 6, and the 1815
fragment. This is a reasonable approach to the expanded canon and provides a
fine opportunity to engage with the music chronologically while also exploring
the less-often-heard “byways” traveled by Beethoven in this instrumental
combination. The performances themselves are uniformly well-done and carefully
considered: Korstick is a thoughtful pianist, and Trinks and the ORF Vienna
Radio Symphony Orchestra provide him with clear, well-balanced support
throughout. Korstick does not hesitate to put his own imprimatur on the
less-often-heard works in the set: he had Hermann Dechant, the same
musicologist who helped create a playable version of the 1815 fragment, produce
a new orchestration for Concerto No. “0,” which was originally orchestrated by
Willy Hess – Beethoven’s orchestral parts have not survived. Dechant’s
orchestration is more forward-looking than the one by Hess, notably by its inclusion
of bassoons throughout in addition to the flutes and horns that would be
typical for the time – and the use of trumpets and timpani in the finale. The
result is somewhat grander than really fits a work by the 14-year-old Beethoven
– although the unusual difficulty of the piano part, which Beethoven probably
created to showcase his own performance capabilities, does seem to invite a
degree of surface-level gloss.
There are many very fine recordings of the Beethoven piano concertos, most usually sticking to the five-concerto group, but an increasing number including at least some ancillary piano-and-orchestra material. The Korstick/Trinks release does not offer historically informed performances, although Korstick is careful not to over-romanticize his readings. Taken as a whole, this is a well-paced, well-thought-out set that handles the canonic concertos with skill and sensitivity and offers the opportunity to expand one’s knowledge and enjoyment of Beethoven’s piano-and-orchestra music by including additional items that are less often heard, even if no longer entirely obscure.
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