Two doubts

[chopithoven]

Here are two doubts that somebody will clear:

1) Officially, how many movements are there in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.3? I know there is a third movement extracted from a Cantata, but it is spurious to me. Would a recording be correct if it has only the two first movements?

2) What kind of piano was used in the premiere of the Emperor Concerto? I know this work requires a keyboard of great scope, but it seems incredible to me to think in so big pianos as early as 1809.

[Andrea]

Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G BWM 1048, for strings and continuo", at least on my CD, the movements are listed as follows: (Allegro), Candenza: Adagio, and Allegro. I really don't know if you want to call the Candenza: Adagio as a movement since it is only 20 seconds long. How many minutes makes a movement? Interesting...

Now as to question #2. Here' all that I could find on that. Because of Beethoven's deafness at this time, he did not perform it in public. The first performance was given by Friedrich Schneider at Leipzig in 1811. In the following year Carl Czerny performed it in Vienna. I wasn't able to find it written anywhere as to "what kind of piano was used in the premiere of the Emperor Concerto". It is only listed as "a concerto for fortepiano and orchestra."

[Rod]

Originally posted by chopithoven:

2) What kind of piano was used in the premiere of the Emperor Concerto? I know this work requires a keyboard of great scope, but it seems incredible to me to think in so big pianos as early as 1809.

Concerning this question I'm pretty certain we don't know the brand, but technically it would have had a light Viennese action and had a keyboard of between 5.5 and 6 octaves. It would have been much smaller than todays Steinway.


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

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:
Concerning this question I'm pretty certain we don't know the brand, but technically it would have had a light Viennese action and had a keyboard of between 5.5 and 6 octaves. It would have been much smaller than todays Steinway.

How many octaves does a modern piano have? Eight? Would any pianist dare to use an octave that wasn't available to Beethoven when playing the piece?

[chopithoven]

Originally posted by Andrea:
Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G BWM 1048, for strings and continuo", at least on my CD, the movements are listed as follows: (Allegro), Candenza: Adagio, and Allegro. I really don't know if you want to call the Candenza: Adagio as a movement since it is only 20 seconds long. How many minutes makes a movement? Interesting...

Of course, the 20 second cadenza is not a movement per se. I was referring to a third movement which is derived from another Bach work, but I don't know if it is part of the concerto officially.
As for the piano, I thank the information.


[This message has been edited by chopithoven (edited January 09, 2003).]

[Gurn Blanston]

Originally posted by chopithoven:
Of course, the 20 second cadenza is not a movement per se. I was referring to a third movement which is derived from another Bach work, but I don't know if it is part of the concerto officially.
As for the piano, I thank the information.


[This message has been edited by chopithoven (edited January 09, 2003).]

In my performance (by Yehudi Menuhin) the second movement is "Adagio: Trio sonata for Organ, movement 2 arranged for violin, viola and continuo by Benjamin Britten". Another performance that I used to own but gave away merely had a very short cadenza in that position of about 20-30 seconds, perhaps the same as was referred to earlier.
Regards, Gurn

[Rod]

For an idea of what the piano used for the performance of the 5th concerto would have looked like, check this page:
http://www.ashburnham.org/Frederickc...nig%201805.htm

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

[chopithoven]

Very good page, Rod.

[Gurn Blanston]

Originally posted by Rod:
For an idea of what the piano used for the performance of the 5th concerto would have looked like, check this page:
http://www.ashburnham.org/Frederickc...nig%201805.htm

That is a splendid looking instrument. One wonders how the sound has held up or mellowed over that last 200 years
Thanks, Gurn

[Gurn Blanston]

Originally posted by Gurn Blanston:
That is a splendid looking instrument. One wonders how the sound has held up or mellowed over that last 200 years
Thanks, Gurn

I am also posting a link to some interesting pictures, one is B's own Erard Piano from 1803, the other is B's own last piano, a Graf. The web site also has many other interesting items, so look around while you are there.
Regards, Gurn
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~simo...o_sonatas.html

[This message has been edited by Gurn Blanston (edited January 11, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by Gurn Blanston (edited January 11, 2003).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Gurn Blanston:
I am also posting a link to some interesting pictures, one is B's own Erard Piano from 1803, the other is B's own last piano, a Graf. The web site also has many other interesting items, so look around while you are there.
Regards, Gurn

Of course you can find these same pics and more about Bs pianos at this site!

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

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
How many octaves does a modern piano have? Eight? Would any pianist dare to use an octave that wasn't available to Beethoven when playing the piece?

I doubt they would dare. Until the Waldstein B's piano compositions needed only five octaves. The late compositions never went beyond 6.5.

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

[Roehre]

Officially, how many movements are there in Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No.3? I know there is a third movement extracted from a Cantata, but it is spurious to me. Would a recording be correct if it has only the two first movements?

Two movements. Between the first and the last movement (both allegro, though the first mvt is not marked as such on the manuscript) there are only 2 chords filling exactly one bar.
The question now is: how to fill in these chords?
In Bach's days most likely a kind of improvisation or cadenza was played.
How long that would have taken? Nobody knows.
Taking a slow movement form a more or less contemporary sonata or cantata is a less likely, but IMO very defendible solution to fill those chords.