Daniel Steibelt.

[giles.enders]

After my first posting on this site, I had a great response. Thank you.
Why hasno one, so far as I know, recorded the eight piano concertos of Daniel Steibelt. 1765-1823.  He was the great rival of John Field while they were both resident in Russia.  At one point they agreed to swap cities so that whoever was in St Petersbuer went to Moscow and vice versa.
Giles Enders

[thalbergmad]

I personally think they are worthwhile, but I know that some on here will disagree with me. Not mentioning any names of course (Gareth).

A while back I sent a couple of scores to the conductor Johannes Moesus who conducted the orchestra for the excellent release of Woelfl Concerti. I think he was mildly interested if memory serves.

Steibelt gets a bad press in my opinion and all anyone seems to remember him for is his duel with Beethoven and his supposed humiliation.

There is a whiff of charlatan about the man, but his music can be witty and sparkling & I hope someone will eventually commit his concerti to disk as well as a few sonatas and variations.

God only know where all of the parts are.

Concertingly

Thal

[Gareth Vaughan]

You do me a disservice. I don't hold any torch for Steibelt but I'd like to see some of his PCs recorded, especially the "Orage" concerto. I just think there are composers more worthy of attention. I could say the same about some of Kalbrenner's music too, which often seems to me to get stuck in mere note spinning.

[JimL]

Isn't it Steibelt whose concertos are all in only two movements, an Allegro and a Finale because he couldn't play slowly?

[chill319]

Isn't it Steibelt whose concertos are all in only two movements, an Allegro and a Finale because he couldn't play slowly?

Wind him up, eh? Has the whiff of a 19th-century canard -- and a pretty droll one at that. But speaking of Field, who would not have been Field if he couldn't play slowly, his second concerto also has no slow movement, if memory serves.
If this is not due to Willi Apel removing the slow movements some decades back (joke), I wonder if it would be due to one of the common older ways of building concert programmes, where contiguous movements of symphonies, at least, were not played contiguously. Accordingly, an improvisation would substitute for the slow movement in the middle of the programme, perhaps sandwiched between some vocal works. Just a thought.

[JimL]

Actually it's Field's 3rd that has no slow movement.  However, with Field it's a little different.  He made a lot of arrangements of his nocturnes for piano and diverse combinations, including full orchestra.  In his 3rd concerto there are documented cases of his utilizing different piano/orchestra arrangements of various of his solo nocturnes (ones in C minor and B-flat, in particular) as slow movements.  For the A-flat Concerto (#2) it is possible that he made an arrangement of a nocturne that ended up being lost, or scrapped as an independent work, for the slow movement.  At least, I've heard no mention of it as a solo piece.  His last concerto, in C minor is also a two movement work, although IIRC it has a nocturne like episode in the middle of the first movement (presaging the Henselt and Scharwenka's PC 1, mayhap?)

P.S. IIRC I got that 'canard' from Harold C. Schonberg's The Great Pianists.

[pcc]

I have a strong suspicion that some of the printed Steibelt orchestral parts may be at the Library of Congress; others (and possibly some manuscript parts) may be in Paris.  I'd really like to hear these works too.

[eschiss1]

Cambridge University Library has parts for op. 33 in E (the Storm Concerto), but only arrangements of other concertos. The Free Library of Philadelphia has parts for no. 5 in E-flat op.64 if I'm understanding right (and perhaps op.33 too?).
The Danish (Royal?) Library has a lot of Steibelt though I'm not sure how many of the orchestral works are in full score & parts and how many are arranged.

[thalbergmad]

The Danish Library has immense amounts of Steibelt. A friend of mine has already extracted some considerable amount of scores and the Librarian there is apparantly hugely helpful.

I guess it would be wise to get someone interested in recording them before too much effort is expended. The solo scores are more than suffucient for one to make a judgement on the music.

Thal

[chill319]

Kalbrenner's music ... which often seems to me to get stuck in mere note spinning.

Mr Vaughan, you omitted a 'k'. Because of which, a search for Kalkbrenner on Unsung Composers produces  "No result. Did you mean 'clambering'?" YES! Precisely!
Seriously, though, in my view Kalkbrenner at his best functions better than almost anyone as a link between Dussek and Chopin. Consider his sonata, op. 48, dedicated to Cherubini. I would opine that the Chopin who composed his opus 65 had internalized this Kalkbrenner in the same way that the Chopin who composed his opus 48 had internalized Field.

[thalbergmad]

Seriously, though, in my view Kalkbrenner at his best functions better than almost anyone as a link between Dussek and Chopin.

I can understand how people could accuse Herz of note spinning, but not Kalkbrenner.

Admittedly, outside of "Effusio Musica" I have not played a great deal of his works, but he strikes me as a more serious composer who did not court popular taste.

Thal

[Gareth Vaughan]

Well, each to his own, of course, but, while I quite enjoy KalKbrenner, it's precisely works like the Effusio Musica which seem to me to indulge in note-spinning in a rather pretentious manner - quite unlike Herz, whose gossamer webs are always full of good humour (if, indeed, humour can be predicated of webs!). I don't think Herz takes himself as seriously as Kalkbrenner, which (for me, at least) makes his music very attractive.