Are these Beethoven’s cadenzas?
Daily Comfort ZoneIsabelle Faust plays a wonderfully introspective ac count of the Beethoven violin concerto with, near the end of the first movement, a solo cadenza that may have been written by Beethoven.
Except it’s not etnirely solo. Faust plays a little riff with the percussionist in what sounds like an anticipation of the finale of the 9th symphony.
See what you think.
Some thoughts from Isabelle:
Why the air of mystery – of course it is by Beethoven: written for the piano version op. 61a of his Violin Concerto (including the tympani part), of which there have been a fair number of recordings over the years. It has been arranged for violin by Wolfgang Schneiderhan among others, and his transcription is published by Henle. The earliest recording I am aware of was by Schneiderhan himself (with Jochum, 1962 on DG) , but it has been recorded by others including Ruggiero Ricci on his Biddulph CD of the concerto and 14 first movement cadenzas which, with a little effort and some time lapses, you can insert into his recording of the first movement. There are also recordings by Kremer and Kopatchinskaja but they do not trust the Schneiderhan arrangement, which I find pretty effective, and go off on tangents of their own. But in essence the music is the same.
Schneiderhan recorded the concerto more than once and as a rule I recall he preferred the Joachim cadenzas for other recordings or broadcasts.
Whether Busoni was familiar with the Beethoven cadenza I do not know but he did something similar in his cadenza for the first movement, memorably recorded in stereo by an aging Szigeti.
I’d have to go to my Fanfare magazine days files (which I do not intend to do, by the way) to tally the number of prior recordings I reviewed of this cadenza in various versions by various violinists. There are a few others. But again, the music per se should be familiar and recognizable from recordings of op. 61a — the piano concerto version. Perhaps the most instructive thing about Beethoven’s cadenzas for the piano version of the concerto is that he seems to have heard the piece as a more aggressive and agitato work than we think of when hearing the original violin version.
Exactly-nothing new here. It’s not as good as the glorious Kreisler cadenza, though, as inspired as the concerto itself.
This Cadenza was composed by Wolfgang Schneiderhan. He took the Piano Concerto cadenza arrangement made by Beethoven himself
The cadenza is a violin version of the one written by Beethoven for the concerto in its transcription (Op. 61a) for piano and orchestra. Henle has published Wolfgang Schneiderhan’s rendering of it for violin (and timpani); it is likely this that Isabelle Faust plays.
From the G. Henle website: “Beethoven transformed his Violin Concerto into a Piano Concerto … As to the original Violin Concerto, there are no extant cadenzas in Beethoven’s hand. This is why the great violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan transcribed the cadenzas of the piano version for his own instrument, the violin, thus leaving us, in a way, with an original cadenza for the original version.”
It is 60 years that this cadenza/arrangemets is being played…
Joseph Swensen recorded a version of this cadenza (as mentioned above, written by Beethoven for the piano version) many decades ago!
Very nice playing. Not that many people can play this concerto so well. I like the cadenza too. I might prefer the Heifetz or Kreisler cadenzas a little more.
Faust played tis cadenza on her recording of the violin concerto some years ago
When she recorded the Brahms Concerto she played Busoni’s cadenza, which I seem to remember also introduced the tympanist.
In a 2020 video clip she talks about her cadenza preference
prior to giving a Cleveland concert perf. of the Beethoven.
As a bit of UK “recording history”: when DG issued the Schneiderhan/Jochum LP it was stereo only. Up to that point DG stereos were always accompanied by a mono counterpart.
I really can’t see what it has to do with the Ninth Symphony. The timpani’s part is based on the 5 taps with which the Concerto begins and from which much of the first movement is derived.