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Wow!
You're smart! You know some STUFF!
I like how he offered it to the publisher for a discount. I
wonder what 20 percent off of Beethoven's Fifth sounds like. I see a recording
label, all the covers are just UPC bar codes, and you can get cheap discount
versions of all the classics. The orchestras meet secretly at night in the
corners of big parking lots. The conductor wears a mask.
In the '80s, New Yorker movie critic Pauline Kael wrote about
a new trend in mega-popular Hollywood mall movies ("Titanic" is a good
recent example) ... she described them as movies that have powerful impact while
you're watching them in the dark theater, but they're entirely consumed while
you're in the theater. An hour later, you can't remember anything about them,
they leave no permanent emotional or æsthetic impress. Entirely consumable in the
theater. That's what this piece sounded like to me.
Did GG ever comment critically on this piece? He sure seems to
have rehearsed it Real Well. Even playing live -- he hit all the right notes,
splicing could not help him in Leningrad. What's sort of unique about this live
orchestra recording is that I can't hear any of my beloved humming; the
orchestra drowns it out, I guess.
Bob
This work, Op. 19 was really
Beethoven's earliest serious attempt at a piano concerto. There is an
earlier work in E-flat major, written when Beethoven was 14 or so in
Bonn, but it is clearly the work of a
talented student. Beethoven's C major concerto Op.15 actually post dates
Op.19 by several years.
I know that Beethoven told his
publisher that Op.19 was "not my best work" and offered it to them
at a discount. I also know that he revised the work substantially from its
earlier version.
However, IIRC the earlier version is
now lost. Beethoven may also have been working on an alternate finale which
has been published as the Rondo in B-flat for piano and orchestra. The Rondo
was not completed by Beethoven, but by Carl Czerny. I agree that Op.19 is
not his best work, but it is still far superior to that of his
contemporaries (except of course Mozart).
Regards,
Eric
Cline
Sr.
R & D Chemist
Graphic
Arts Synthesis Group
Reichhold,
Inc.
Global
Coating and Performance Resins
Phone
Toll Free: 1-800-448-3482 ext.8116
e-mail:
eric.cline@reichhold.com
http://www.reichhold.com
(Click
here to go to the Reichhold home page)
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