Beethoven: The Piano Concertos Alexander Lonquich & Münchener Kammerorchester

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827): Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 19:
• 1 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 19: I. Allegro con brio 13:42
• 2 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 19: II. Adagio 08:22
• 3 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major, Op. 19: III. Rondo. Molto allegro 06:10
• Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15:
• 4 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15: I. Allegro con brio 17:53
• 5 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15: II. Largo 10:05
• 6 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15: III. Rondo. Allegro scherzando 09:09
• Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37:
• 7 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37: I. Allegro con brio 17:04
• 8 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37: II. Largo 10:02
• 9 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37: III. Rondo. Allegro 09:26
• Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58:
• 10 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58: I. Allegro moderato 20:01
• 11 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58: II. Andante con moto 05:08
• 12 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58: III. Rondo. Vivace 10:04
• Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73 "Emperor":
• 13 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73 "Emperor": I. Allegro 20:44
• 14 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73 "Emperor": II. Adagio un poco mosso 07:11
• 15 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op. 73 "Emperor": III. Rondo. Allegro 10:38
• Total Runtime 02:55:39

Info for Beethoven: The Piano Concertos

Alexander Lonquich, one of the foremost performers in chamber music and as a soloist, has said that “every encounter with a work of art is at the same time an exploration of one's own existential position. This is the only way to make music today.” The New York Times has called him “an original at the piano who features both orderliness and suppleness”, and his musical authority has brought him to some of the most prestigious festivals and stages across the world and led to collaborations with renowned orchestras and musicians alike. After a first appearance on ECM’s New Series with premiere recordings of Israeli composer Gideon Lewensohn’s works on Odradek (2002), two subsequent solo recitals plus a duo programme with violinist Caroline Widmann (2012), here pianist Alexander Lonquich, alongside the Münchener Kammerorchester, rises to a more extensive challenge, in performing the entirety of Beethoven’s piano concertos, programmed in chronological order.

Beethoven’s five completed piano concertos – the C major op. 15, the B flat op. 19, the C minor op. 37, the G major op. 58 and the “Emperor”, in E flat major, op 73 – document the composer’s development over two decades.

In his detailed liner note, the German pianist calls these recordings a “very special experience, for performers and listeners alike. The usually common placement of the individual works in the context of a symphony concert all too often runs the risk of confirming and reinforcing what is already traditional, while this chronological order draws attention to stylistic leaps in the compositions and allows the listener to experience Beethoven's development as the author of these outward-looking creations that illustrate his pianistic virtuosity between 1790 and 1809.”

Almost no other genre in Beethoven’s body of work was created within as condensed a time-span as his piano concertos – his quartets, symphonies and piano sonatas for instance he wrote over the entire span of his artistic life. Accordingly, his rapid stylistic evolution, from a deeply Mozart-inspired thinker to the utterly independent and influential composer he is known to be, can be traced in detail over the course of these concertos.

Lonquich talks about this evolution in his liner note, also addressing the always technically challenging qualities of Beethoven’s works: “The one aspect of the concertos he performed himself that cannot be ignored is a tendency towards virtuosity: the cadenzas of the first movements written down by him give an impression of his exuberant playing, while in elaborations written years later, such as in the 1809 C major concerto's candenza, he certainly did not shy away from stylistic breaks; we also know, in contrast to his interpretative demands concerning the piano sonatas, that even the final versions were little more for him than templates for spontaneous or prepared variation – the audience had to be surprised time and again. With op. 37, the period of orientation towards the past definitely comes to an end; what follows is itself a model.”

The concertos were captured at the Rathausprunksaal, Landshut in January 2022.

Alexander Lonquich, piano, direction
Münchener Kammerorchester
Daniel Giglberger, concertmaster

Alexander Lonquich
performs worldwide in Japan, United States, Australia as well as at the most important European music centres. He is regular guest of prestigious Festivals, such as Salzburg Festival, “Mozartwoche Salzburg”, Piano-Festival Ruhr, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Lucerne Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Kissinger Sommer, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Lockenhaus, Beethoven Festival in Bonn and Warsaw, a. o. He played under the baton of Claudio Abbado, Yuri Bashmet, Philippe Herreweghe, Heinz Holliger, Ton Koopman, Emmanuel Krivine, Mark Minkowski, Kurt Sanderling, Sándor Végh a.o.

Alexander Lonquich’s performances as soloist & conductor are hailed by the international media and audiences. He regularly appears with the Camerata Salzburg, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova, Münchener Kammerorchester, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Stuttgart Chamber, the hr Symphony Orchestra Frankfurt and others.

Lonquich has been most successfully soloist of the Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, the Düsseldorf Symphonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic, to name a few. He is also profoundly committed to chamber music and plays with partners such as Nicolas Altstaedt, Vilde Frang, Nils Mönkemeyer, Joshua Bell, Renaud and Gautier Capuçons, Veronika Hagen, Heinz Holliger, Steven Isserlis, Leonidas Kavakos, Isabelle van Keulen, Sabine Meyer, Heinrich Schiff, Christian Tetzlaff, Carolin Widmann, Jörg Widmann, Tabea Zimmermann, the Auryn Quartet, the Carmina Quartett, to name a few.

His recordings with oeuvres of Mozart and Schubert for EMI received outstanding reviews and were awarded with prizes, such as „Diapason d’Or“ in France, „Premio Abbiati“ in Italy and „Premio Edison“ in Holland.

Various CDs have been released by ECM RECORDS, among other “Plainte Calme” featuring French composers and recently featuring Schumann (Kreisleriana) and Heinz Holliger (Partita, as well as a CD together with the violinist Carolin Widmann dedicated to F. Schubert.

The most important projects in the past season were spectacular concerts at the Salzburg Summer Festival as Soloist and Conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Beethoven Cycles with the violinist Christian Tetzlaff, various successful tours with the Camerata Salzburg trough Germany, Spain, Italy and Switzerland, stupendous performances with the Orchestra da Camera di Mantova in the whole of Europe, tours with the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

Highlights of the season 2015/2016 will be his Residency at the NDR Symphony Orchestra, a US-Tour with Nicolas Altstaedt, a tour through Spain with Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi as well as a cycle of Beethoven‘s 5 concertos for piano with the Munich Chamber Orchestra. In 2016, his new CD recording of Schumann’s concert pieces with Heinz Holliger and the WDR Symphony Orchestra will be released.

Born in Trier (Germany) Alexander Lonquich studied with Astrid Schmidt-Neuhaus, Paul Badura-Skoda, Andreji Jasinski and Ilonka Deckers and started his international career winning the First Prize at the International Piano Competition „Antonio Casagrande“ in Terni, Italy at the age of sixteen.

Booklet for Beethoven: The Piano Concertos