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For me quite a spectacular discovery is Beethoven's draft for the exposition for a concerto movement for Violin, Cello and Orchestra from 1802 ! Here is my attempt to work this out to a full movement:

- see more explanations there ...

Greetings, Gerd

Frank Paul whom I know from a composers forum composed recently a chaconne for string quartet and piano. I was so touched by it that I did this orchestration - I think it is really great!

After discovering the Requiem by F. Lachner I now discovered a maybe even more beautiful work - every movement is of an  outstanding beauty!! I never had expected from this composer who I thought had written only light operettes.
It moves me almost as the miracoulous Requiem by Ozip Kozlovsky and the 2 Requiems by Cherubini!!

 

The masterwork by E.Mayer seems to be this great symphony in f-minor which for me surpasses all her other symphonies , even  all her other works. Especially the first 3 movements are quite a discovery, and here above all the most beautiful and melodious Adagio!!! ...) !! :

This I wrote a few weeks ago: http://gerdprengel.de/symphonic_Adagio.mp3

It starts in a calm and solemn way,  but has a wilder middle part, my favourite part is the ending ...

Gerd

I am just enjoying this beautiful Piano Trio from 1861 which I never heard before:

I love especially movement 1 - 3 , in particular the slow 3rd movement (together with the score from the IMSPL site)  - pretty much like Mendelssohn ...

I just finished a wonderful new project. Around 1803 Beethoven sketched 5 marches with the complete melodic line. 4 of them were realised recently by Italian musicologist G. Demini as marches for piano and I orchestrated now all 5 marches - I love them and I hope you will too!

https://youtu.be/IGyKwAdim9Y

Gerd

Alan asked me to share my own symphony. Well here it is:

I. Andante/Allegro appassionato   

II. Andante cantabile   

III. Scherzo Presto (theme based on a Beethoven sketch)   

alternative: Scherzo on an original theme   
 
IV. Andante / Allegro con spirito    

Im the summer of 1823 Beethoven began concepting the final movement of his 9th symphony and he was struggling whether it should be a choral or an instrumental movement. There are 3 sketches from July and even from autumn with a theme which later in 1825 he would use (in a changed and more elaborated form) for the main theme of the Finale of the a-minor string quartet op. 132 and also for a 2nd theme. In the recent days one question arose in my heart: How might Beethoven have written the alternative instrumental Finale of the 9th? So I began brooding over the sketches and orchestrated the 5th movement of op. 132 and began now to write a symphonic Finale. In this I use certain orchestrated passages from the expostion/recapitulation and the Coda of the quartet movement. But the opening and the development will be completely new. I hope to present to you the outcome in a few weeks ... both a crazy and fascinating task :-).

Recently I found this most fascinating early Beethoven Menutto orchestrated  by someone based on a piano sketch - I find this version so beautiful that I am somewhat even reminded of Brahms: 

See the third audio file on the page of: https://www.lvbeethoven.it/oop05minuettoreminore/

I myself just orchestrated these delightful Beethoven dances Woo 10 which so far were only available as piano transcriptions:

https://www.lvbeethoven.it/woo010/?fbclid=IwAR0RP1tlns86lDKcFyr4lqDBXkLZ_mqv2KGVUyAOwU4_0E5c622NLBqpGc4   (see at the end of the page)

Single movements of my project 'Mendelssohn 6th symphony' I have presented here before. Here now the whole symphony with score in youtube. After the first 2 minutes which are to 99% by Mendelssohn I marked Mendelssohn's sketches in my score with colour yellow, also in movement 2. See further informations in the description of the video :-)

https://youtu.be/U0dFe2nBn_s

Gerd 

One of the greatest miracles in the genre of symphony always has been for me the slow movement of Schubert's last symphony project D936a which he wrote shortly befor his death in piano reduction - but not in the more known orchestration by B.Newbould but by P.Guelke from 1982:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AVN0Qu3FQU

What a depth of expression!!! comparable to no other Adagio. Listen to the incredible flute melody at 4:20 , ...

Gerd

[Finale]

As I have orchestrated the Scherzo from Mendelssohn's op. 81.2 perhaps for my realisation of Mendelssohn's 6th symphony now I orchestrated also the Fugato from string quartett movement op. 81.3 part II. This is, I think, the most furious and wildest piece Mendelssohn ever has written! Could this be the Finale of a symphony? At the end I added the main theme of the 1st mov. of the 6th symphony (I call it the "morning theme") in a solemn way to close in a sense a circle for the symphony. What do you think? Does it fit?

www.gerdprengel.de/mend6-4.mp3

In these days news go around that in the coming days Beethoven's tenth symphony allegedly realised bei AI will be performed in Bonn.
Here at the end of this article you can listen to the "Scherzo" - what do you think ? Also compared to what I have done ...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-artificial-intelligence-completed-beethovens-unfinished-10th-symphony-180978753/

my version:
www.gerdprengel.de/Scherzo-on-10th.mp3

Beethoven's sketch for Scherzo and Trio:

www.gerdprengel.de/sketch_scherzo_10th.jpg

Gerd

Hello, recently I discovered a wonderful Scherzo fragment for string quartett by Mendelssohn from his last year in 1847 (published posthum as op. 81,3) As it is in a-minor I think I could use this as a Scherzo for my project of Mendelssohn's 6th unfinished symphony in C Major and so I orchestrated it in the last 4 days (actually nights ;-) - I like it a lot ... Would you say it could be used for a symphony Scherzo eventhough it does not have a Trio?

http://www.gerdprengel.de/Scherzo81.mp3

It would come after the first movement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsSbVr-RyqI

and before the Andante

http:// https://youtu.be/dzjXaJBPfBQ


Gerd

In February I presented to you the first movement of my first performed string quartet based on Beethoven's "Last thoughts" for a string quintet. Now also the remaining movements have been recorded. Here I am happy to present the second movement with variations on Beethoven's last sketched theme for a slow movement!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeBCq2D9SGo

I recommend to listen to it with headphones .

Please let me know what you think of it ... Thank you!

Gerd

Some time ago i presented my symphony which made use of some sketches for Beethoven's planned 10th symphony. The Scherzo was based on the 24 bar theme by Beethoven titled "Presto". I realised now that my tempo was not Presto at all but much too slow, so I increased the tempo now and now it is a real Presto Scherzo:

http://gerdprengel.de/Scherzo-on-10th.mp3

I got aware of my tempo misunderstanding by orchestrating an awesome Beethoven piano Scherzo (Woo 52) titled also "Presto":

http://gerdprengel.de/Beeth_Woo52_orch.mp3  (original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAdvVNT939M&list=RDKAdvVNT939M&start_radio=1

Gerd

Did you know that around 1815 Beethoven was working on a last Piano Trio in f-minor? We know an almost complete introduction and an almost complete main melody line of the Allegro exposition. About 20 years ago W.Holsbergen made an outstanding job to complete this to an awesome first movement. Here it is:

https://unheardbeethoven.org/mp3s/biam637gp.mp3

https://unheardbeethoven.org/docs/biam637AWH.pdf

I hope you will enjoy this as much as I do ...

Gerd

Here now also some movements from Beethoven's great string quartett op. 130 in my orchestra version. I must admit that this quartett has long been that quartett among Beethoven's late quartetts which I liked the least (adoring only the Cavatina). But since working on it with my orchestration it has become one of my favourite...

http://www.gerdprengel.de/Beeth-op130-1-orch.mp3
http://www.gerdprengel.de/Beeth-op130-2-orch.mp3
http://www.gerdprengel.de/Beeth-op130-4-orch.mp3

Gerd

Among Beethoven's sketches for his quartett op. 130 a very beautiful Adagio tune was found by B.Cooper. I liked this theme so much that in the last 2 weeks I wrote a variation movement for string quartett on this.

It starts with the naked theme, then it is repeated with an added bass line and a second part from me, then 7 variations follow:

www.gerdprengel.de/Beeth_quartett_sketch_1825_variations.mp3

www.gerdprengel.de/Beeth_quartett_sketch_1825_variations.pdf

I hope it will speak to you ... any suggestions for improvement?