BEETHOVEN TRILOGY 2: CHILDHOOD / See Siang Wong, Piano / Review

BEETHOVEN TRILOGY 2: CHILDHOOD

See Siang Wong, Piano

London Philharmonic / Sir Roger Norrington

RCA Red Seal 19439883152 / TT: 79’11”

 

The second album of Swiss-Chinese pianist See Siang Wong’s Beethoven Trilogy, in celebration of the German composer’s 250^th year, focuses on his childhood and teenaged years. Almost all the music heard here was composed before 1790, when still a student in his hometown of Bonn. The keyboard smasher of Vienna had yet to arrive. The works also fall under the WoO (Werke ohne Opuszahl or Works without Opus number) catalogue and virtually nothing will be familiar to most concert-goers and record collectors. For completists, however, every note here by the proto-Beethoven is essential.  

 

For starters, the three Kurfürstensonaten (Prince Elector Sonatas) WoO.47 from 1782-83 give a good idea what was on the mind of the pre-teen Beethoven. These are short three-movement works, much in the spirit of Haydn and Mozart’s earlier sonatas, filled with fire in the belly but not lacking in lyrical charm especially in the slow movements. The second sonata in F minor, with a slow and serious introduction, provides a foretaste of his Pathetique Sonata of 1798. The two-movement Sonata in C major (WoO.51) from 1790 is even shorter, with a harp-like elegance unusual elegant for the brusque and brash young man.

 

The piece de resistance is the Piano Concerto in E flat major (WoO.4) from 1784, not the Emperor and sometimes designated No.0. Its three movements, playing for some 25 minutes, only existed as a piano solo with orchestral parts adapted from a second piano reduction. Wong performs the edition by Dutch pianist Ronald Brautigam and adds his own highly idiomatic cadenzas. Although derivative in parts, this nonetheless shows immense promise and a flair for the flashy. His model were not Haydn or Mozart, but rather Johann Christian Bach, the keyboard virtuoso also known as the “London Bach”. The mercurial finale also has a minor key “Turkish episode” at its centre, then a rage in contemporary musical fashions.   

 

The Rondo in B flat major (WoO.6) was the discarded original finale for Beethoven’s next piano concerto, in B flat major (now beloved as his Piano Concerto No.2, Op.19). There is a famous 1963 recording on Deutsche Grammophon by Sviatoslav Richter with Viennese forces under Kurt Sanderling, but this modern one tops it all. The London Philharmonic is sympathetic throughout both concertante works, in what must be one of Sir Roger Norrington’s last recordings before his retirement.

 

There are two sets of variations as delightful extras. Dressler Variations in C minor (WoO.63, 1782-83) and Variations on a Swiss Song in F major (WoO.64, 1790) are ultimately inconsequential, but show more facets of young Beethoven’s oeuvre. Wong lavishes nothing less than love and care for all of Beethoven’s juvenilia, his innate musicianship shining beyond the routine. This album is self-recommending, and Volume 3 of Wong’s Beethoven Trilogy is keenly awaited.