Beethoven: The Forgotten Concerto for Pianoforte, Op. 61a

This album presents a fresh interpretation on period instruments of Ludwig van Beethoven’s seldom-heard Piano Concerto in D major, Op. 61a – Beethoven’s own transcription of his celebrated Violin Concerto, Op. 61, completed in 1807. Anders Muskens plays an original grand fortepiano by John Broadwood & Sons, London, c. 1806, with Das Neue Mannheimer Orchester, which he leads jointly with the Australian/British concertmaster Rachael Beesley.

Our approach embraces the expressivity of early Romantic aesthetics and experiments with the expressive devices of the nineteenth-century orchestra. Many of them – flexibility of tempo and rhythm, dislocation, portamento – are seldom heard from orchestras today, yet they were integral to nineteenth-century performing practice. The result is a new take on Beethoven, grounded in historical sources, that challenges the status quo.