Beethoven 5th Symphony Piano Arrangements ?

[robert newman]

Does anyone know if Beethoven's 5th Symphony ever appeared at any time in a version for 2, 3 or even 4 pianos ?



[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-21-2006).]

[Chris]

I've seen a G. Schirmer edition for four hands.

[robert newman]

Thank you very much. To produce a version for 4 hands, or 2, 3 or even 4 pianos would be quite an achievement in itself.



[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-21-2006).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by robert newman:
Thank you very much. To produce a version for 4 hands, or 2, 3 or even 4 pianos would be quite an achievement in itself.

[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-21-2006).]

Liszt transcribed the complete symphonies for piano 2 hands - they are masterly and extremely difficult to play!

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'Man know thyself'

[robert newman]

Thank you Peter. I recently heard the Liszt version for 2 hands and it's truly remarkable.

I was thinking not so much of a piano version that sounds remarkably like the orchestral version but a piano version that sounds like a piano version. Perhaps 4 hands. Even for 8.

Thanks



[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-21-2006).]

[Joy]

Originally posted by Peter:
Liszt transcribed the complete symphonies for piano 2 hands - they are masterly and extremely difficult to play!

They are among my favourites in my CD collection (I'm still missing Symphony #8, however). They are amazing! Truly a collective masterpiece and how difficult it must be (maybe not for Liszt) to transcribe these works, IMHO.



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'Truth and beauty joined'

[cosplusisin]

where did you get the 7th? I'd love to get my hands on the 7th, but I can't find it. In fact all I can ever find in music stores is the naxos ones, and the 7th hasn't been released on naxos. i've bought the 2nd and 5th, the 4th and 6th, and the 9th from naxos. I still need to get the 3rd and 1st (I think), and the 7th and 8th isn't out yet (though it has been recorded).

the only other recordings i've found is a 5 or so cd set of all of them played by leslie howard, and i'm not ready to spend all that money yet.

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by robert newman:
Does anyone know if Beethoven's 5th Symphony ever appeared at any time in a version for 2, 3 or even 4 pianos ?

[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-21-2006).]

This is most likely NOT what you are looking for, but I do have piano reductions of the orchestral scores to symphonies nr. 3, 5, 7, and 9 (Ricordi from Buenos Aires) and 5 and 6 (Oliver Ditson). The Ricordi I picked up 30 years ago and I do not know how old they are but the Diston I am sure are well over 50 years old. I do not know if these are available anymore.

Sorry--I forgot to add that they are intended for 1 piano, 2 hands.

[This message has been edited by Sorrano (edited 04-23-2006).]

[robert newman]

Thanks Sorano. I am looking for any keyboard arrangement of the Beethoven 5th symphony for more than 2 hands since the existing versions have obviously been attempts to make such an arrangement sound as much like the orchestral version as possible. A version for 4, 6 or even 8 hands would be a version that sounds like a symphony written FOR keyboards.

Regards

[atserriotserri]

Hi Robert,
Glenn Gould recorded the Liszt piano transcription of the 5th & 6th symphonies. I'm not at home and I need to check it out in the inner notes of the record, but I think that on the 6th he added (overdubbed) some additional piano parts.

[robert newman]

Dear Atserriotserri,

Wow ! That's amazing. Yes, yes, Glenn Gould !!!

(I've heard his Lizst arrangement of Beethoven's 5th recently but not his Pastoral).

Of course, yes, Glenn Gould - just the sort of man who would have thought of this. Brilliant ! Thank you

You know, if there was an arrangement made of the 5th symphony for 4 pianos ..... and provided that the parts were all kept tightly within certain octaves, the result would be quite remarkable.

R

[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-24-2006).]

[atserriotserri]

Originally posted by robert newman:
Dear Atserriotserri,

Wow ! That's amazing. Yes, yes, Glenn Gould !!!

(I've heard his Lizst arrangement of Beethoven's 5th recently but not his Pastoral).

Of course, yes, Glenn Gould - just the sort of man who would have thought of this. Brilliant ! Thank you

You know, if there was an arrangement made of the 5th symphony for 4 pianos ..... and provided that the parts were all kept tightly within certain octaves, the result would be quite remarkable.

R

[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-24-2006).]

Robert, I'll take a look at the inner notes of the cd once I'm at home and see what it's said about it.

[atserriotserri]

Robert, I'm back at home at last.
Andrew Kasdin, for many years Gould's producer remembers "Gouls pointed to a place in the FInale amd explained that it was barely imposssible to play what Liszt had written, to do so would turn the performance into a don't-complain-if-the-musical-lines-are-a-little-bit-shaky-because-you-should-be-thankful-that-you're-hearing-all-the-notes-in-the-first-place situation. He felt that if he was allowed to use four hands (by electronically overdubbing one performance on top of another), he could maje the section more musical. So, in two or three places in the last pages, the astute listener can perhaps detect the results of a four-handed performance."
The 6th, he recorded it for a recital programme for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (June 11, 1968).
In the 4th movement Gould's tempo is faster than Beethovens indication, when on the other movements his tempi are slower as much as 40% of those indicated by Beethoven, mentions in the notes Kevin Bazzana, author of "Glenn Gould's Beethoven". I have not listened to any other recording of Liszt's transcriptions, but I love those.
If you're curious about it I could perhaps mp3 it...
I have mentioned other times in this forum, despite his image of nothing-more-than-Bach pianist, Glenn Gould recorded more Beethoven than Bach, leaving aside progressively most of his ferocious criticism over almost any composer born after Bach and before Wagner.

[robert newman]

Thank you so much Atserriotserri !

This is really, really excellent. How thought provoking !

Glenn Gould (a pianist I've only gradually come to admire) can perhaps be described as being more interested in the spaces between notes than in the notes themselves. I once remember reading somewhere that he dismissed all of Mozart's mature piano works as 'candy floss', saying that early Mozart was in his view the most musical. I have heard him in some astounding recordings of Bach, particularly his Goldberg Variations (the second of which he says gives them the dance like rythms they really deserve) and also in his tremendous recordings of the Partitas and the Toccatas.

I do not know his Beethoven recordings (other than the version of the 5th Symphony which I found to be almost flawless). But I'm personally sure that a version made for 4 pianists could be, if made well, a quite remarkable thing to hear.

Again, many thanks for this, and for remembering it despite not being at home.

The best recordings I've heard to date of late Beethoven sonatas have been those of Brendel. But who am I to judge this - having far less exposure to recordings of those works than many members here.

Best regards

Robert


[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-29-2006).]

[atserriotserri]

Originally posted by robert newman:
Thank you so much Atserriotserri !

This is really, really excellent. How thought provoking !

Glenn Gould (a pianist I've only gradually come to admire) can perhaps be described as being more interested in the spaces between notes than in the notes themselves. I once remember reading somewhere that he dismissed all of Mozart's mature piano works as 'candy floss', saying that early Mozart was in his view the most musical. I have heard him in some astounding recordings of Bach, particularly his Goldberg Variations (the second of which he says gives them the dance like rythms they really deserve) and also in his tremendous recordings of the Partitas and the Toccatas.

I do not know his Beethoven recordings (other than the version of the 5th Symphony which I found to be almost flawless). But I'm personally sure that a version made for 4 pianists could be, if made well, a quite remarkable thing to hear.

Again, many thanks for this, and for remembering it despite not being at home.

The best recordings I've heard to date of late Beethoven sonatas have been those of Brendel. But who am I to judge this - having far less exposure to recordings of those works than many members here.

Best regards

Robert


[This message has been edited by robert newman (edited 04-29-2006).]

Hi Robert; there are quite really funny and cruel quotes from Gould which I take as a provocation that his recordings tended to tinge. For instance he criticised Beethoven for long years, but studying his recordings, and his sessions (he was a very methodical man) show that progressively played and recorded more Beethoven than Bach, and in his final output, 1st is Beethoven and 2nd Bach. He had a particular taste; for instance he said that the 6 bagatelles op. 126 were greater works of genious & more subtle thant their precedent, op. 125, the 9th symphony!
As for Mozart, I guess he never changed his mind (he came to say that he died too late, rather than too soon).

Concerning your remark on his interest in spaces more than in notes themselves, he said, when questioned about his tendence to retard the tempo where there are several interpretations of the same work: "I think that the majority of the music that moves me very eeply is music I want to hear played or want to play myself, as the case may be, in a very ruminative tempo (Tim Page: "... in other words you want to savour it..:"). No I don't think so, at least to me 'savour' somehow suggests 'dawdling' or 'lingering over' or something like that, and I don't mean that. No, a firm beat, a sense of rhytmic continuity has always been terribly important to me. But as I've grown older I find many performances, certainly the great majority of my own early performances, just too fast for comfort. I guess part of the explanation is that all the usic that really interests me is contrapunctual music; [...] music with an explosion of simultaneous ideas -which counterpoint, you, know, when it's at its best, is. And it's music where one, I think, implicitly acknowledges the essential quality of those ideas, and I think it follows from that, that with really complex contrapuntual textures one does need a certain deliberation, a certain 'deliberate-ness'".