News:

BEFORE POSTING read our Guidelines.

Main Menu

Kunneke Piano concerto

Started by Rob H, Sunday 14 May 2017, 15:17

Previous topic - Next topic

Rob H

I notice this release on clicmusique.com 

http://www.clicmusique.com/eduard-kunneke-concerto-pour-piano-serenade-zigeunerweisen-triendl-theis-p-99057.html?osCsid=ed6416658f04dfdfabff77d1c10fdf01

What confuses me is this paragraph:

For example, his Piano Concerto is a work very much displaying higher aspirations and qualifying as top-quality musical entertainment. His concerto is certainly the most original and spirited example of a genre of works engaging in dialogue with classicism and swing in the 1920s and including contributions by Gershwin and Ravel.

Listening to the Concerto as recorded by Stech I'm hearing a big, romantic piano concerto - not hearing classicism or swing/Ravel or Gershwin. Is this a different piano concerto does anyone know?
Rob

FBerwald

From the cover page it seems its the Op. 36. So it's the recorded No. 1. Incidentally .. is there a No. 2. I tried to see if this has been discussed in this forum before but can't seem to find anything.

Alan Howe


Alan Howe

...but there are certainly very clearly jazz-inspired passages towards the end of the finale.

jerfilm

If the first piano concerto is opus 36, where did I get the idea that the recording I have of #1 is in Ab and I have it as opus 85??

Jerry

Alan Howe

Well, PC1 Op.36 is certainly in A flat. As for Künneke's 'Op.85', I can find no reference to it anywhere.

Gareth Vaughan

I did some research into this a few years ago but I couldn't find a 2nd PC by Kunneke anywhere. Perhaps he called his PC "No. 1" intending to write another, but never managed to do so. In much the same way, Holst called his choral symphony "Choral Symphony No. 1" - but he never wrote a No. 2.

Alan Howe

Phew! That was the conclusion I had come to (in the absence of any evidence of a PC2), so I'm glad to have your expert confirmation, Gareth.


eschiss1

As to "Op.85" Künneke's opus numbers do go up at least as far as 53 (Biedermeier-Suite) anyway, perhaps further...

FBerwald

The No. 2 ref. was based on the booklet info accompanying the Piano Concerto No. 1. It refers to orchestral works including a 1 movement "Romantique" Piano Concerto No. 2. Anyways... back to the CD, this would be a very welcome recording as the Pianist on the Koch CD never did complete justice to the piece.

FBerwald

is this something to be looked into?...


Alan Howe

Now that is interesting! Of course, it's only a piano reduction, so one wonders where the full score might be.

Gareth: how do you react to this information?

Gareth Vaughan

This is new information to me. Mind you, my research was done about 15 years ago and more info is now available online than it was then. I did also write to a number of major libraries, I recall, but none could help. As Alan points out this is a piano only edition, so we would need to locate the full score and/or set of parts. Perhaps a letter to the Archiv would be helpful. Better still, I see the publisher is Otto Wrede (Regina Verlag), and they still exist so they could be contacted to see if they have the performance materials for hire.

QuoteListening to the Concerto as recorded by Stech I'm hearing a big, romantic piano concerto - not hearing classicism or swing/Ravel or Gershwin

By the way, listening again to the YouTube performance, I disagree. I hear plenty of Gershwin and Ravel in the syncopations and harmonies of this piece almost from the word "go".

Alan Howe

Here's the entry in question:
https://archiv.adk.de/BildsucheFrames?easydb=ub5q0i015jq7c2elsn7jpuju26&ls=2&ts=1494839649

Bestand           Eduard-Künneke-Archiv
Signatur           Künneke-Eduard 582
Klassifikation   1.1.2. Instrumentalwerke
Titel                   (Romantisches) Konzert für Klavier und Orchester Nr. 2
Enthält           Klavierauszug
Datierung           1943
Objektspezifische Felder - Auflage/Edition/Label:    Otto Wrede (Regina-Verlag) Berlin
Personen/ Institutionen  - Künneke, Eduard (1885-1953)   , Komponist   
Provenienz           Sammlung zum Nachlass
Umfang           Dr., S. 3-26
Permalink           https://archiv.adk.de/objekt/2101138
Standort           Robert-Koch-Platz
Aktueller Standort -  Magazin


Importantly, another entry under 'Liste über fehlende Bücher und Partituren' (List of missing books and scores) has this:
Klavierkonzert Nr. 2 (Partitur, Hs. einziges Ex.) - which I think means: 'Piano Concerto No.2 (score, manuscript only copy)'.

So the implication is that it wasn't published and that the manuscript of the full score is missing. Nevertheless, there would seem to be a piano reduction available. Fascinating...

Alan Howe

Incidentally, we're talking about a location in Berlin here (Robert-Koch-Platz), which is part of the Archive of the Berlin Academy of the Arts (adk.de).