Excellent and well-known to the Poznan audience artists: the pianist Martin Stadtfeld and the conductor Ariel Zuckermann, will be the heroes of the next Internet Concert to which, along with the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, we invite you on Friday on the 11th of December at 7 p.m.

In the December evening we will listen to the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Magdalena Łoś wrote about that work in the program of the Poznan Philharmonic concert, when it was performed by Piotr Anderszewski (8th of February 2019):

Regardless of the doubts concerning the chronology, Beethoven’s Concerto in C Major, Op. 15, was the first one published from the collection of piano concertos and it became number “1”. It was composed in the 1790s in Vienna, however Beethoven postponed its publication until 1801. Meanwhile he had been playing it, testing, altering, improving… He guarded it jealously as his valuable possession and a strong point in the repertoire of a concert pianist. It was back then, when the audience admired the artist in that particular role – of a virtuoso and a brilliant improviser, and the subsequent performances of the concerto spread its fame. It magnetized the public. Among numerous testimonies probably the most impressive is the description of Carl Czerny, who attended the concert in Berlin in 1796, when in all likelihood Beethoven performed the Concerto in C major, Op. 15. Czerny recalls tears flowing from the eyes of the listeners during the famous improvisations of the composer. Hardly anyone could resist that great deal of emotion. Czerny also admires the beauty and the originality of Beethoven’s musical ideas, as well as the boldness of the style in which he presented them. Despite leading the audience to tears, he could finally burst into laughter, as if mocking their reaction and the state he put them into.

Three versions of the original cadences to the first movement of the Concerto in C major, written down in 1809, are a priceless evidence which gives us an insight of the improvisational skill of the composer. He himself highly rated his work. Right before its publication he expressed an opinion that it is one of his best musical pieces so far. Its style refers to the piano concertos of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in many ways (including the presence of trumpets and timpani, which was not obvious back then) and it also foreshadows Beethoven’s original musical language manifested by the sound of the aforementioned instruments or the rhapsodic second slow movement with the hypnotizing lyrical piano part in a marvellously dreamy mood. The energy and the earthy, whimsical humour leading us often into surprising directions of the final danceable rondo present the restless spirit of Beethoven, well-known from many of his subsequent works. In the opening movement it is also passionate and optimistic.

PERFORMERS:
Martin STADTFELD – piano
Ariel ZUCKERMANN – conductor
Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra

PROGRAM:

• Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15

Allegro con brio
      Largo
      Rondo. Allegro

Cadences – Martin Stadtfeld

***

WELCOME TO OUR CHANNEL!