Frederic Lamond recording for the Duca - 21 July 1909, Frankfurt (Courtesy The Pianola Institute)
Frederic Lamond, born in 1868, is a pianist originally from Glasgow in Scotland. Before Artur Schnabel established himself as the Beethoven pianist of his time, Lamond was considered the greatest interpreter of B.'s works on the piano. The tradition is certainly there: Beethoven "blessed" Liszt with a kiss on the forehead (possibly apocryphal) and Liszt was Frederic Lamond's teacher when a teenager. Lamond also personally met Tchaikovsky, Brahms and possibly Clara Schumann. (Whenever I read about these pianists and their encounters with repertoire composers like Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, et al.. I always feel like I'm reading about a time "when Gods walked the Earth". That would of course make Beethoven a kind of "Zeus" figure I suppose...)
While listening to Lamond's Beethoven sonatas, it strikes me how "eccentric" his and Schnabel's interpretations are compared to most modern performers. Both seem to have more expressive rubato and take more dynamic liberties than what I'm used to hearing from pianists of the latter half of the 20th Century. It's quite interesting to hear this interpretive "evolution".
Here's a recording of Lamond talking about his meeting with Franz Liszt. Apparently the first thing they studied together was B.'s "Hammerklavier" Sonata Op. 106. No shortage of self-confidence there!
And here's a full selection of Lamond's Beethoven - rich stuff. His Moonlight is unusually fast, the feeling is quite different yet still maintains atmosphere... Pt 1-3: Piano Sonata #14 In C#m, Op.27/2, "Moonlight" Pt 4-5: Piano Sonata #23 In Fm, Op.57, "Appassionata" Pt 6-8: Piano Sonata #8 In Cm, Op.13, "Pathétique" Pt 9-11: Piano Sonata #17 In Dm, Op.31/2, "Tempest" Pt 12: Piano Sonata #12 In Ab, Op.26, "Funeral March" M. 1-2 Pt 13-16: Piano Concerto 5 in Eb major, Op.73 "Emperor" Pt 17: "Eroica" Finale (4-Hand Player Piano Arrangement)
For some reason I really enjoy listening to Glenn Gould talk - probably even more than listening to him play! ...Then again I'd rather listen to his Beethoven piano sonatas again before re-hearing one of his "interviews" - no longevity is apparently the problem.
This recent discovery on YT was a fun listen though, "Glenn Gould: Concert Dropout".
From the cover it says:
Partial Agenda: The Concert is Dead The Only Excuse for Recording is to Do it Differently The Great Get-Sibelius Plot Exposed A Live Audience is a Great Liability Petula Clark's Songs are in the Post-Mendelssohn Tradition Why I Sing Along Electronic Music is the Future
Apparently this was a largely scripted and edited affair - but it still answers a great many questions about Gould's later view on life and music.
This record is followed by "At Home with Glenn Gould" which was recorded while Gould was still playing live concerts - maybe this one was "real" since I found it far less interesting...
Pt 1-6: Glenn Gould: Concert Dropout (54 min)
Pt 7-15: At Home with Glenn Gould (1 hr 17 min)
And here we have an excerpt of Glenn Gould performing to "no one" and re-interpreting Liszt reinterpreting Beethoven's Pastoral Symohony - this seems to encapsulate everything Gould talks about in the interview, right?
Transcribing Beethoven's music for alternative instruments is almost a cottage industry in itself. It was very common for piano transcriptions of B.'s symphonies and string quartets to appear even before the orchestral scores hit the sheet music stores. In those days, after a performance it wasn't possible to take home the program book, go to Youtube and re-listen to all those brand new pieces. The best one could do was buy the sheet music for the work and play it at home on one's own pianoforte. We sure have it good these days! However, the loss of that practice has largely contributed to the deterioration of musical education/appreciation today (at least that what Roger Sessions says).
Franz Liszt's piano transcriptions of the 9 symphonies of Beethoven are fairly well-known (my personal favorite recording is the set by Cyprien Katsaris) but less famous are Liszt's transcriptions of Beethoven's song-lieder and the Opus 20 sextet. Youtuber liszt73has quite a few performed by Leslie Howard, and so I might as well just make a handly list of these piano arrangements (except the symphonies, they're easy enough to find).
Alkan also made a piano arrangement of the "Cavatina" 5th movement of Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 130: Beethoven/Alkan: Cavatina
Even tho I'm leaving Liszt's piano transcriptions of the symphonies out for today, I will include Richard Wagner's transcription of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, complete with vocal soloists and choir: Richard Wagner Piano transcription of Symphony 9 - 4th Movement
There's even a version of the full opera Fidelio in piano 4-hands - arranged by Alexander Zemlinsky.
When Beethoven found about all these "upstarts" doing piano transcriptions of his symphonies (except for his friends of course) he oftentimes disowned them, or if he got really outraged he'd do a transcription of his own - tho generally he didn't think much of transcriptions and alternate arrangements. That of course didn't stop him from using the Eroica/Prometheus theme in 4 different works...
Here's a sketch fragment of Beethoven's own attempt to transcribe the 7th Symphony - it sounds a bit half-hearted - and then he pretty much tosses it in the trash at the end, probably because he had to get back to work on the Missa Solemnis... Symphony No 7 in A major, Op 92, 1st Movement Fragment transcribed by B.
