Beethoven - Piano Concerto in D major, Op. 61a (original arrangement) by Ludwig van Beethoven Full Orchestra - Digital Sheet Music

SKU: A0.1659805

The present edition of an original arrangement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto in D major from 1807 (known as Op. 61a and itself an arrangement, allegedly by the composer himself, of his great Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, from 1806) is an attempt at making its solo part more idiomatic. It is addressed to concert pianists and its purpose is to facilitate the admission of the piano version in the canon of piano concertos. Curiously enough, although it is an arrangement of a masterpiece, it has never acquired the status of Beethoven’s ‘original’ piano concertos.

The composer’s autograph score of the Violin Concerto includes variants of the solo part and sketched cues for its piano version. The piano arrangement, published in Beethoven’s name and approved by him, kept the orchestral parts unchanged, however it included a strangely thin solo piano part, without any chords for the right hand (which is almost a literal copy of the solo violin part, albeit with some of its variants) and with rather trite accompaniment figurations for the left hand. Sure, facing the poor impact of the Violin Concerto, Beethoven promised a piano arrangement of it to the editor, yet his personal circumstances in 1807 (bad health and many composing projects) may justify to a degree his haste with regard to it. Also, it is quite strange that both his composer/pianist associates and former pupils Carl Czerny and Ferdinand Ries didn’t took responsibility in advising him towards more careful a dealing with the piano arrangement. Perhaps their or Beethoven’s haste or negligence was also due to the tediousness of such a task when compared to original compositions, and the posterity’s neglect of it may have something to do with the admiration for the well-known version for violin.

To the casual listener, a performance of the present edition may show no spectacular differences from the one published in Beethoven’s name. The piano part was only discreetly completed with chords (in accordance to Beethoven’s contemporary works for pianoforte and orchestra), the left hand accompaniment was slightly changed every here and there in order to make it less perfunctory, and Beethoven’s original four cadenzas and lead-ins were transcribed with bar lines, dynamics and tempo indications, and included in the score at the appropriate places (this latter issue would contradict the spontaneous character of the classical cadenza, yet we should consider Beethoven’s personal circumstances, which forced him to become more and more a composer rather than a performer, a tendency clearly seen in his last completed Piano Concerto, Op. 73). The pedal signs are Beethoven’s, the turns were written out in full, and the metronome marks were included here partly based on the recommendations by Czerny for movement 1 op. Op. 61 and Moscheles for movement 3 of Op. 73, yet decreased by ca. 10% since music tended to sound faster in imagination than in concert halls.

The mp3 clip is a recording of movements 2 and 3. Performing Rights Organization: SOCAN. Total duration: 41 min.