The more familiar you are with Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, the stranger today’s composition is going to sound. It is a transcription of the Violin Concerto that converted it into a Piano Concerto (maybe adapted by Beethoven himself, maybe not).
Italian-born composer, pianist, and publisher Muzio Clementi had been living in England since the 1760s. While passing through Vienna in 1807, he met with Beethoven and drew up a deal for exclusive rights to publish Beethoven's music in England.
Clementi wrote to his business partner, “I agreed with him to take in MSS. [manuscript] three quartets, a symphony, an overture and a concerto for the violin, which is beautiful, and which, at my request he will adapt for the pianoforte with and without additional keys; and a concerto for the pianoforte, for all which we are to pay him two hundred pounds sterling.” (Thayer-Forbes, p. 418)
These compositions are Opp. 59, 60, 62, 61, and 58, but notice the request for an adaptation of the Violin Concerto into another Piano Concerto.
It is not known if Beethoven himself took on the job of transcribing his Violin Concerto for piano and orchestra. Beethoven scholars seem to be doubtful, but they are more confident about the new cadenzas, which are believed to be authentically Beethoven.
#Beethoven250 Day 203
Piano Concerto in D Major (Opus 61a), 1807
A performance of the Violin Concerto in the transcription for piano and orchestra.