Léon Kreutzer; Piano Concerto in Eb

[Darrel Hoffman]

I have posted my rendition of this monster of a concerto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKUcPP_f8l0

With 4 movements at over an hour in length, it was probably the longest piano concerto ever written at the time.  Even today I only know of a handful that are longer, mostly 20th century works.  This is the culmination of two years of work (okay, not constant as I did dozens of other pieces in that time).  But I started this one before my channel went public.  I put it on hold for a while when I learned there is another rendition out there in MuseScore, but I think I've improved on the sound quality of that one.

I consider this to be almost a concerto sandwich - the first and last movements are each long enough to be stand-alone concertos in their own right.  The second movement is a fairly standard slow movement, but the third movement is - weird.  It sounded to me less like classical music and more like a precursor to modern techno or dubstep.  So I had a friend create a few examples of just that using an AI generator - links are in the video description.  They're a fun listen if you're into that sort of thing.

[4candles]

It's wonderful - you did a fabulous job!

If helpful for other listeners here, I posted on the YouTube comments that the Scherzo and Finale move along much better if you increase the speed toggle to about x1.25 for these movements.

Otherwise, other than a few wrong notes and harmonies picked up during transfer from Musescore, this is a great achievement and was deservedly Kreutzer's most celebrated work, living up to the praise Berlioz heaped on it.

Thank you Darrel!

[Darrel Hoffman]

Could you point out where you think those wrong notes are?  Nothing stood out to me, but it's a very long piece, I wouldn't be surprised if I missed a thing or two.  Not sure if correcting them is worth reposting the piece or not...

Note - I did not use the existing MuseScore rendition, this is entirely my own work.  I do use MuseScore in my process as something of a middle-man between Mozart where I do most of the note entry and Sibelius where I do the polishing, as exporting from Mozart directly to Sibelius often seriously corrupts everything.  As it turned out, I had to reinput large portions of the 1st movement directly in Sibelius anyhow.

[4candles]

There's probably no need to re-upload the work, unless you really feel like doing so and, in fact, the errors I heard were all in the first movement (indeed, not all of them may be errors!).

If you feel like taking a look, here are the parts when I think I heard something 'off' on my latest hearing:

Mvt 1:

• Bars 3 and 4 of piano entry
• Cellos around the 4:19 mark in the video
• Piano part at the 7:44 mark
• Harmony at the 10:19 mark
• Harmony or piano (can't tell) at letter 'I'
• Piano from 16:05 should be a C-flat in the trill
• Harmony around the 16:50 mark
• Piano from 18:38
• Harmony from 19:35

[Darrel Hoffman]

Alright, I'll investigate.  If nothing else, I might post a corrected version of just the audio to my Patreon, along with the tempo changes you suggested in the 3rd and 4th movements.  (Those would require resequencing the latter half of the video if I were to make another one.)  Unlike YouTube, Patreon allows you to easily replace files with corrected versions.  For YT, I'd have to make a whole new video because you can't replace them with a correction.

But I don't host videos on Patreon, I embed the YT ones instead - even for a short one it takes forever to upload for some reason (like 3+ hours for something that YT uploaded in 5 minutes).  This one would probably take a day and a half...

[Darrel Hoffman]

You sir have a very discerning ear.  I was in fact able to locate errors at each of those locations or close to it.  (e.g. 4:19 the error was the violas not the cellos, but close enough).  Makes me wonder how much else I missed that just doesn't sound wrong enough to be noticeable.  Even in these cases, it didn't sound that wrong to me most of the time.  Do you have some particular familiarity with this piece?  e.g. Have you studied it before in an academic setting or something?  I know you expressed interest months ago when I mentioned I was working on it.

[4candles]

Haha, thanks! I've been aware of this concerto for over 15 years and am (if I remember correctly) responsible for its digitisation in the Bibliothèque national de Paris and transfer across to IMSLP.

I've never studied it in an academic setting, no, but I've played through parts of it at home on numerous occasions (mainly before I had kids 😅) and was impressed by it from the get-go.

I've listened to your realisation numerous times and now feel that the speed changes should be more like x1.10 for the slow movement and x1.20 or x1.25 for the last two movements.

[Darrel Hoffman]

Well I tried out some tempos - I personally found the x1.25 to be too fast on both the 3rd and 4th.  I had settled on x1.15, but I'm willing to meet you halfway at x1.20.  I still find it a bit fast, but it may be just that I've heard it so many times at the tempos I originally chose that it's hard to adjust in my brain.

[Darrel Hoffman]

Corrected audio has been posted here.

[4candles]

Whilst recognising this is a busy time for everyone personally, I'd really like to hear other members' thoughts on this mammoth achievement by Darrel.

What say you?

Best
4c

[eschiss1]

Will have a listen soon, thanks for the reminder!, and to his other Kreutzer realizations soon; I have been interested in this composer for some time

[4candles]

There are other Kreutzer realisations coming!? Excellent news!

Kreutzer is most certainly an uneven compositional character. If you juxtapose something as grand and concert-worthy as this concerto with the string quartets – some of which are relatively bizarre (I still love the 6th though!) – it's hard to understand where his mind was at sometimes!

It might be instructive to anyone interested in him to read about the pieces he chose to programme in his concerts, which included his Symphony in B-flat and excerpts from his opera La fille d'Azure, as well as some orchestral songs. It seems he was astute in terms of which pieces he chose to unveil to his audience (which, interestingly, rarely accommodated the general public whose musical proclivities he seems to have detested).

4c

[terry martyn]

I have waded through the first movement (at the second attempt).

He had obviously listened to Beethoven, but I fear that I was put in mind of Rubinstein's Ocean Symphony (in its uncut state). Not in style,I will say, but in length and (lack of) substance.

I will try the other movements later and see whether they are more worthwhile.

[Ilja]

Do I think it's a particularly good concerto as a whole? Not really. But it is a fascinating one, composed by someone set on adding a completely individual contribution to the genre. In a way, we can perhaps best compare Kreutzer to someone like Koechlin almost a century later. That 3rd movement is something quite unique, and I found it quite difficult to get out of my head. However, as a complete work I feel that it presents a potentially insurmountable hurdle in that interminable first movement. Once you survive that it's quite an enjoyable experience.

Nitpick: I think in the case of Rubinstein's Ocean we can't really speak of "cut" and "uncut" versions, but rather of "original" and "extended" ones.

[4candles]

I think you've made a great point, Ilja, about Kreutzer adding a "complete individual contribution". His individuality as a person and his individuality of expression is one of the things that I've found most fascinating about Kreutzer.

You can't compare the style and development of this symphonic concerto, nor indeed any of his other output that I've heard, with anything by any other composer. We are all much more used to hearing works by composers who, for the vast majority, have gone through some sort of formal conservatory training - thereby assimilating rigorous teaching and various musical influences - something which Kreutzer didn't have. This shows, of course, but the music is (to me at least) all the more original.

Someone here or at IMSLP made an interesting suggestion some time ago, when discussing Kreutzer's quartets and symphonic output – that Kreutzer was composing for himself, into a vacuum, as it were. So, other than the clear influence of Beethoven, his voice is entirely his own.

Fascinating stuff!