베토벤 피아노콘첼토 4번

 ●★ Wilhelm Backhaus - Beethoven:Piano Concerto N.4 in G ★●

 

 

                                             Allegro Moderato

 

                                             Andate con moto

 

                                             Rondo Vivace

 

 

              Plays by Wienner Philharmonic Orch. & Karl Boem(Cond.)

 

  ■ Wilhelm Backhaus(1884~1969) ■

 

Wilhelm Backhaus, 1907

 

Wilhelm Backhaus ('Bachaus' on some record labels) (March 26, 1884 – July 5, 1969)^[1] was a German pianist and pedagogue.

Born in Leipzig, Backhaus studied at the conservatoire there with Alois Reckendorf until 1899, later taking private piano lessons with Eugen d'Albert in Frankfurt. As a boy of 9 or 10 he was taken to hear both of the Brahms piano concertos performed by d'Albert — and conducted by Brahms himself. He made his first concert tour at the age of sixteen. In 1905 he won the Anton Rubinstein Competition with Béla Bartók taking second place. He toured widely throughout his life - in 1921 he gave seventeen concerts in Buenos Aires in less than three weeks. Backhaus made his U.S. debut on January 5, 1912, as soloist in Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto with Walter Damrosch and the New York Symphony Orchestra.^[1] In 1930 he moved to Lugano and became a citizen of Switzerland. He died in Villach in Austria where he was to play in a concert. His last recital a few days earlier in Ossiach was recorded.

Backhaus was particularly well known for his interpretations of Beethoven and romantic music such as that by Brahms. He was also much admired as a chamber musician. one of the reasons for his unique sound is his choice of a Bösendorfer piano for his performances and recordings, as opposed to the more common use of Steinway pianos.

 

● Recordings

This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (April 2009)

According to some critics,^{[citation needed]} Backhaus was one of the first modern artists of the keyboard (see Alfred Cortot for his antithesis) and played with a clean, spare, and objective style. In spite of this analytic approach, his performances are full of feeling. one of the first pianists to leave recordings, he had a long career on the concert stage and in the studio and left us a great legacy. He recorded virtually the complete works of Beethoven and a large quantity of Mozart and Brahms, and he was also the first to record the Chopin etudes, in 1928; this is still widely regarded as one of the best recordings (Pearl 9902 and others). Backhaus plays them smoothly and softly, overcoming their technical challenges without apparent effort. A live recording from 1953 includes seven of the Études, Op. 25 and shows the changes that occurred in his playing style over the years (Aura 119). His technical command is the same, but he is more relaxed and confident and more willing to let the music speak for itself.

 

His January 27, 1936 recording of Brahms's Waltzes, Op. 39, runs just over thirteen minutes. His studio recordings of the complete Beethoven sonatas, made in the 1960s, display exceptional technique for a man in his seventies (Decca 433882), as do the two Brahms concertos from about the same time (Decca 433895). His live Beethoven recordings are in some ways even better, freer and more vivid (Orfeo 300921).

His chamber music recordings include Brahms's cello sonatas, with Pierre Fournier, and Franz Schubert's Trout Quintet with the International Quartet and Claude Hobday.^[2]

 

The Times praised Backhaus in its 1969 obituary for having upheld the classical German music tradition of the Leipzig Conservatory. His phenomenal transposing powers spawned many anecdotes: finding the piano a semitone too low at a rehearsal of Grieg's A minor Concerto, he simply played in B flat minor — and then in A minor at the concert, after the instrument had been correctly tuned.^[3]

 

Backhaus was quick to recognize the importance of the gramophone. His July 15, 1909 somewhat abridged recording of the Grieg Concerto was not only the first recording of that work, but the first time any concerto had ever been recorded. Later, on January 5, 1928, he made the first complete set of recordings of the Chopin études. At his death, Backhaus was just completing his second complete Beethoven sonata cycle. All that was missing was the Hammerklavier Sonata — when, according to the Beethoven specialist Stephen Kovacevich, Wilhelm Backhaus was the only pianist to have really understood it. (Excerpts from the book/guide to the “Great Pianists of the 20th Century”, published and © in 1998 by the Philips Music Group).

 

● References

1. ^ ^{a b} Slonimsky; Theodore Baker (1992). Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Eighth Edition. New York, New York: Schirmer Books. 
2. ^ Frank Forman. ""Acoustic Chamber Music Sets (1899-1926): A Discography."" (html). Journal of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections. In three parts: Volume 31, No. 1 (Spring 2000); Volume 31, No. 2; Volume 32, No. 1. http://www.panix.com/~checker/acch.htm. "Claude Hobday also recorded the work as a member of the International Quartet with Wilhelm Backhaus on Gramophone. ES 395/8 [Austria] [10 sides]. The members of that quartet performing for the recording were André Mangeot, violin; Frank Howard, viola; and Herbert Withers, cello. Reissued on CD: Biddulph [England]. LHW 038 (1997), 'Backhaus plays Schubert's Trout Quintet.'" 
3. ^ The Times (July 7, 1969) "Professor Wilhelm Backhaus"

● External links

● Recordings

• Piano Rolls (The Reproducing Piano Roll Foundation)
• Recordings and discography (Youngrok Lee's Classical Music page)

 

 

 

 

 

● Beethoven Piano Concerto N.4

 

 

 

Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, op. 58, was composed in 1805–1806, although no autograph copy survives.

● Musical forces and movements

The work is scored for solo piano and an orchestra consisting of a flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. As is standard for classical concertos, it is in three movements:

 

I. Allegro moderato (G major)

II. Andante con moto (E minor)

III. Rondo (Vivace) (G major)

 

● Premiere and reception

It was premiered in March 1807 at a private concert of the home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz. The Coriolan Overture and the Fourth Symphony were premiered in that same concert.^[1] However, the public premiere was not until 22 December 1808 in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien. Beethoven again took the stage as soloist. This was part of a marathon concert which saw Beethoven's last appearance as a soloist with orchestra, as well as the premieres of the Choral Fantasy and the Fifth and Sixth symphonies. Beethoven dedicated the concerto to his friend, student, and patron, the Archduke Rudolph.

A review in the May 1809 edition of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung states that "[this concerto] is the most admirable, singular, artistic and complex Beethoven concerto ever" [Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, May 1809]. However, after its first performance, the piece was neglected until 1836, when it was revived by Felix Mendelssohn. Today, the work is widely performed and recorded, and is considered to be one of the central works of the piano concerto literature.

 

● Movements

● I. Allegro moderato

The first movement opens with the solo piano,^[2] playing simple chords in the tonic key before coming to rest on a dominant chord. After a poetic pause of two and a half beats, the orchestra then enters in B major, the major mediant key, thus creating a tertiary chord change. This becomes a motif of the opening movement.

 

The orchestra states the main theme in B major, dropping through the circle of fifths to a cadence in the tonic, G major. The theme is then stated again, this time in stretto between upper and lower voices. A very strong cadence in the tonic, withering away within one bar, introduces a transitional, modulatory theme with restless triplet accompaniment, also containing hints of stretto. The music moves to the minor mediant key, B minor, while its dynamic is reduced to pianissimo, at which point material from the opening theme returns. Through a rising bass line and sequential harmonies, the music regains the tonic key (on a dominant pedal) with a new theme derived from bars 3, 4, and 5. The final cadence is delayed for several bars before the material from the opening bar resurfaces as the movement's closing theme, accompanied by a tonic pedal over forte dominant chords.

 

Felix Salzer says the following about this opening, "[It is] one of the most fascinating substitutions of the entire literature...The whole passage appears as a most imaginative prolongation of interruption, the post-interruption phrase starting with a B-Major chord boldly substituting for the tonic. In addition, this post-interruption phrase introduces a very interesting melodic parallelism in form of an augmentation of the end of the pre-interruption phrase one step higher."^[3] In other words, the piano plays the antecedent phrase of this period, and the orchestra answers with ^3 supported not as chordal third of the tonic G, but rather as a root of a #III (B major) chord which substitutes for the localized tonic G major chord. After a series of parallel tenths, (which contains the seeds of the secondary theme's parallel 10ths) ^3 is supported by tonic, which proceeds to ^2 supported by II6 and V7 before achieving the end of the period with a Perfect Authentic Cadence. (WMH)^{[clarification needed]}

 

The piano's entrance resembles an Eingang, an improvisatory passage from Mozart's day that would have occurred after the orchestra's last unresolved dominant chord, but before the piano played the main theme. Beethoven captures this improvisatory style by accelerating the rhythm in the piano part, from eighth notes, to triplets, to sixteenth notes, and finally in a scale that rushes downward in sixteenth-note sextuplets. A long preparation is then made before a tonic cadence duly arrives, and the orchestra once again takes up the main theme.

 

● II. Andante con moto

The second movement is widely associated with the imagery of Orpheus taming the Furies (represented, respectively, by the piano and unison strings) at the gates to Hades. It was long thought that Franz Liszt had been the first to suggest this association, although, as musicologist Owen Jander pointed out,^[4] it was probably first used by Adolf Bernhard Marx in his 1859 biography of Beethoven. The movement's quiet E minor ending leads without pause into the C major chords that open the finale.

The solo cadenza at the end of the movement calls for a usage of the left pedal in a manner which is not literally possible on the modern piano; for discussion see Piano history and musical performance.

The theme of the introduction to César Franck's Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra has reminded many commentators of the opening of the slow movement of the Beethoven Concerto No. 4.^[5]

 

● III. Rondo (Vivace)

In contrast to the preceding movements, the third movement, in traditional rondo form, is characterized by a very rhythmic theme. The main theme begins in the subdominant key of C major before correcting itself to reach a cadence in the tonic G major.

 

● Cadenzas

Cadenzas for the Fourth Piano Concerto have been written by a number of pianists and composers throughout its history; these include Clara Schumann, Ferruccio Busoni, Hans von Bülow, Ignaz Moscheles, Camille Saint-Saëns, Anton Rubinstein, Nikolai Medtner, Eugen d'Albert, Leopold Godowsky, and Samuil Feinberg

 

 

                                                  ■ From Wikipedia ■