Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 2
Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 2
Gramophone Choice
Piano Concertos – No 2; WoO4. Rondo, WoO6
Ronald Brautigam (pf) Norrköping Symphony Orchestra / Andrew Parrott
BIS BIS-SACD1792 (58' · DDD/DSD) Buy from Amazon
Beethoven’s early E flat Piano Concerto, WoO4, ought to be better known. Written around 1784 when he was 14, it survives in a manuscript copy of the piano part that Beethoven later annotated and amended. The orchestral tuttis were also written into the manuscript, along with indications that the scoring was for two flutes, two horns and strings. The first modern performance was given by Edwin Fischer in Potsdam in 1943 in a realisation by Willy Hess.
The piano-writing suggests the alliance of virtuoso execution with an already distinctive musical voice. In later life, Beethoven rarely chose so charming a rondo subject as he does here, but the discourse in the two earlier movements is decidedly Beethovenian: doubly so in this superbly articulated performance by Dutch pianist Ronald Brautigam. A follower and pupil of Rudolf Serkin – the influence is evident – Brautigam is also the editor of this new reconstruction.
His account of the Second Concerto, interestingly coupled with a none too remarkable earlier finale Beethoven wrote for the concerto, is first-rate. It is intriguing that Brautigam deploys a modern Steinway, matching this, with fine Dutch pragmatism, to the period manner of the Norrköping players under Andrew Parrott. The strings lack weight in their rebuttal of the piano’s skittishness in bar 23 of the B flat Concerto’s finale; for Beethoven’s joke to work they need to put on a braver show than this before they capitulate. A terrific disc, none the less.
Additional Recommendation
Piano Concertos – Nos 2 & 3
François-Frédéric Guy (pf) Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra / Philippe Jordan
Naïve V5179 (60' · DDD) Buy from Amazon
What a joy François-Frederic Guy’s performances are. Brilliant and direct in the finest French tradition, they are also alive with passing felicities, whether illuminating an early pioneering spirit or a change into what EM Forster once called ‘Beethoven’s C minor of life’. In the Second Concerto Guy’s exuberance and poetry go hand in hand. The first movement’s startlingly original cadenza is played with unfaltering assurance and the hushed magic with which Guy handles the main theme of the central Adagio sounds a special note. A dazzling finale, too, finds ample time for individual nuance and pointed characterisation, making his sense of contrast in the Third Concerto all the more remarkable. Here both he and Jordan take a qualified view of Beethoven’s con brio, conveying an atmosphere of foreboding, of minor-key unease resolved in an inward-looking Largo where everything is experienced afresh. The finale is unusually restrained but, again, there is nothing of the studio and everything of a life experience. Guy’s reading ranks high in a crowded catalogue.
