Piano Concerto No 1 in C Major

[spaceray]

I heard this on the radio with pianist Pierre
Laurent Aimard and Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.The presenter said that Beethoven would improvise in the solo parts.This is news to me ,I tended to think that classical music was ridged .How different would this have been in each performance?Are we talking embellishments to show off virtuosity or would he change the mood of the piece with extemporization?

[Peter]

In the case of Mozart and Beethoven they were both soloist and composer, and probably would experiment in performance, embellishing some passages here and there, revising the work at a later date before publication. The cadenza was of course the traditional place where a soloist was given free reign - Beethoven however was not happy with this and wrote out his own cadenzas. In the Emperor concerto the cadenzas are fully incorporated into the score to ensure no extraneous input from the soloist. Once the score was published, Beethoven intended it to be performed as written.

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'Man know thyself'

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Peter:
In the case of Mozart and Beethoven they were both soloist and composer, and probably would experiment in performance, embellishing some passages here and there, revising the work at a later date before publication. The cadenza was of course the traditional place where a soloist was given free reign - Beethoven however was not happy with this and wrote out his own cadenzas. In the Emperor concerto the cadenzas are fully incorporated into the score to ensure no extraneous input from the soloist. Once the score was published, Beethoven intended it to be performed as written.

Mozart sometimes did not even write down the solo part of a piano concerto before giving the first public performance (with written parts for the orchestra, of course).

[Rod]

I am certain that I read that Beethoven also wrote 'continuo' parts for the piano where it is currently silent during the orchestral sections, for all the fp concertos, and that these parts existed in some early editions.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited November 26, 2002).]