Beethoven, Rejcha: Klavírní koncerty - CD

This CD brings together piano concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven and Antonín Rejcha, performed by Jan Bartoš with the Wiener Symphoniker and the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Petr Popelka. Alongside Beethoven’s famous Fifth Piano Concerto in E-flat major, Op. 73, “Emperor,” it presents Rejcha’s only piano concerto in the same “heroic” key, E-flat major, in its first complete recording; the missing part of the solo score was discovered only in 2018. The recording offers a musical perspective on the friendship between the two great composers at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Born in the same year, they met as fifteen-year-olds in the court orchestra in Bonn and remained close friends. They studied together at Bonn University, shared a friendship with Haydn, and their work, especially during their Vienna period, is closely connected. Rejcha’s concerto and Beethoven’s Fifth were written in Vienna within a short period. While the “Emperor” is a cornerstone of the piano repertoire, Rejcha’s concerto receives its first complete recording here. Jan Bartoš is a highly acclaimed Beethoven interpreter and follows the tradition of his teachers Ivan Moravec and Alfred Brendel. The live recording from the Prague Spring festival features the Wiener Symphoniker, whose close association with Beethoven lends it authenticity, while the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra performs the detailed studio recording of Rejcha’s work. Petr Popelka conducts both orchestras and partners Bartoš, bringing meaning and life to every note. Beethoven and Rejcha thus symbolically meet again, more than two centuries later, on one album.