Unsung Composers

The Music => Composers & Music => Topic started by: gprengel on Wednesday 14 August 2019, 18:39

Title: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: gprengel on Wednesday 14 August 2019, 18:39
Who among you knows this piano concerto? Who may be the composer? I love it - especially the coda !

http://gerdprengel.de/raetsel06.mp3

Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: Alan Howe on Wednesday 14 August 2019, 20:31
Is this the entire work?
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: pianoconcerto on Wednesday 14 August 2019, 22:17
This is the first movement of Mendelssohn's incomplete piano concerto in e (1842-44).  It has been recorded commercially 4 times in different reconstructions.  Here are the details from my piano-and-orchestra discography.  I hope this helps:

Concerto [No. 3] in e, I-II (1842-44; reconstructed by R. Larry Todd from two manuscripts in the M. Deneke Mendelssohn Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford)
+Koch Internat. Classics 3-7197:  Jennifer Eley/English CO/Sayard Stone

Concerto [No. 3] in e, I-III (1842-44; reconstructed by Marcello Bufalini, with new orchestration and third movement based on three fragments for the finale in the Bodleian Library, Oxford)
Roberto Prosseda/Royal Liverpool PO/Harry Bicket (live)
+4Danacord 734-736:  Oleg Marshev/S. Denmark PO/David Porcelijn
+Decca 4781525:  Roberto Prosseda/Leipzig Gewandhaus O/Riccardo Chailly

Concerto [No. 3] in e, I-III (1842-44; reconstructed by Martin Yates, 2013, with new orchestration and third movement based on fragments for the finale in the Bodleian Library, Oxford)
+Dutton 7312:  Victor Sangiorgio/Royal Northern Sinfonia/Martin Yates

Your recording does not appear to duplicate any of these.  It is different in orchestration from the Bufalini and Yates reconstructions, and quicker than the Todd edition as recorded by Eley.  However, it seems to follow the Todd more than the other versions, so maybe this is a new recording.  From where did you get your performance?
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: Alan Howe on Wednesday 14 August 2019, 22:29
I have some of these recordings! And a poor memory!
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: gprengel on Wednesday 14 August 2019, 22:51
YES, very good -  isn't it awesome? I like it more than his other 2 previous concertos!
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: Alan Howe on Wednesday 14 August 2019, 23:00
Oh, no.1 has been a favourite of mine for decades - ever since I bought it on LP with Rudolf Serkin playing!
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Wednesday 14 August 2019, 23:03
But which reconstruction is it? Do we know that?
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: gprengel on Wednesday 14 August 2019, 23:50
it is the one from L. Todd:

I.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gi7S0za-9JE
II. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4ZsYlwz3r8
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: Gareth Vaughan on Thursday 15 August 2019, 00:04
Interesting. Thank you.
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: pianoconcerto on Thursday 15 August 2019, 04:53
The youtube videos that gprengel cited are "not available" in the USA.  However, given that they were posted on the "Matthias Kirschnereit - Topic" channel, it seems reasonable to believe these are from his 2009 set of Mendelssohn piano concertos with the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz under Frank Beermann (2CDs, Arte Nova Classics 88697386222).  As I noted in my orig. response, the pianist follows the Todd rather than the Bufalini or Yates versions, but plays the music much faster than Eley.  Kirschnereit also recorded as a third movement an arrangement by Todd of the finale of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, which shares not only the key but several thematic ideas with pc3.  Perhaps someone who owns this CD can shed additional light on the latter.

I have now revised the entry in my discography as follows:
Concerto [No. 3] in e (1842-44; I & II reconstructed by R. Larry Todd from two manuscripts in the M. Deneke Mendelssohn Collection, Bodleian Library, Oxford, and a manuscript copy, now at Yale Univ., prepared by Mendelssohn's copyist Henschke for Niels Gade; this reconstruction, published by Bärenreiter in 2008, also includes as the third movement Todd's arrangement of the finale of the Violin Concerto in e)
+2Arte Nova Classics 88697386222:  Matthias Kirschnereit/Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz/Frank Beermann
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: eschiss1 on Friday 16 August 2019, 05:32
other three-plus solo piano concertos, I guess :) (I assume Mr. Prengel doesn't prefer the A minor to all three of his later efforts.)
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: Ebubu on Friday 16 August 2019, 10:59
Funny, before reading these posts, I thought "well, it sounds rather very Mendelssohnian in some parts, but of course it can't be Mendelssohn"...
:)
Title: Re: Who knows this piano concerto?
Post by: Alan Howe on Friday 16 August 2019, 20:56
I was similarly caught out. It happens. Frequently.