Beethoven - Piano Concertos nrs. 1 & 3 - Gerhard Oppitz, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Marek Janowski

Posted in Beethoven, Concerto, Gerhard Oppitz, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Marek Janowski, Piano, RCA Victor

Beethoven arrived in Vienna in 1792 and at first made his reputation primarily as a piano virtuoso. It was quite natural that within a short time he would turn to the composition of the piano concertos, a genre that had been developed to such a high degree by Mozart. To an ambitious and talented young composer like Beethoven, Mozart's mature concertos offered a wealth of inspiration and models, but also a great burden: how could anyone create something new in a form that had been brought to virtual perfection by the recently deceased master?

Beethoven's response, a balance of respect for tradition and an urge toward innovation, was fully characteristic. In his first three piano concertos, composed in the decade between 1793 and 1803 and all writtn for his own use, he did not abandon the elegant Mozartian forms, but infused them with a new urgency and intensity. The distinguished critic Donald F. Tovey felt that in the process Beethoven had "radically misconceived" the proper role of the opening orchestral tutti by making them too symphonic, too spacious, too full of development and modulations. But it was precisely in this way that Beethoven began to put his own unique stamp on the concerto form. ...

Walter Frisch

Beethoven

Piano Concertos

Concerto nr.1, in C, Op. 15
Concerto nr.3, in C minor, Op. 37

Gerhard Oppitz, piano
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Marek Janowski, conductor

Recorded january 26 to february 4, 1995,
at the Grosser Saal des Gewandhauses, Leipzig

Gerhard Oppitz plays the original Beethoven cadenzas

Quality: mp3, varied kbps
Size: 131 MB

This entry was posted on 16.10.08 at 05:01 and is filed under Beethoven, Concerto, Gerhard Oppitz, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Marek Janowski, Piano, RCA Victor . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .