Concerto for Piano in E-flat, WoO 4: Full Orchestra, Solo Keyboard with Ensemble, Conductor Score

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) composed his Concerto for Piano in E-flat major, WoO 4 in Bonn in 1784, when he was only thirteen or fourteen years old and had recently obtained a regular position as a musician in the electoral court; sometimes informally called "Piano Concerto No. 0," it predates by several years the works ultimately numbered as his five canonical piano concertos and offers a remarkable glimpse of the adolescent composer absorbing the Classical concerto tradition, with the influence of Johann Christian Bach and the Mannheim school particularly evident. The concerto is in three movements (1. Allegro moderato; 2. Larghetto; 3. Rondo. Allegretto) and was apparently conceived for piano and orchestra, but the original orchestral score and parts, if they were ever completed, have been lost; what survives is a manuscript copy of the complete solo part, corrected by Beethoven, incorporating piano reductions of the orchestral tuttis and occasional indications for instruments including flutes, horns, and strings. The manuscript's title page, apparently inscribed by Beethoven's father Johann, claimed that the concerto had been composed when Ludwig was only twelve (part of the elder Beethoven's efforts to present his son as a child prodigy in the manner of Mozart) although the securely accepted composition date is 1784. The surviving version was first published around 1890 by Breitkopf & Härtel, and twentieth and twenty-first-century scholars and performers, notably Willy Hess, have reconstructed orchestral accompaniments from the evidence preserved in the piano part. Today, Concerto for Piano in E-flat major, WoO 4 remains a rarity rather than part of the standard Beethoven concerto repertoire, but it has considerable historical importance as his earliest surviving attempt at the genre he would later transform so profoundly, revealing both the conventions surrounding a gifted young court musician in Bonn and intriguing anticipations of the individuality that would emerge in his mature music. Instrumentation: 2.0.0.0: 2.0.0.0: Str (4.4.3.3.3 in set): Solo Piano in score. Edition by Willy Hess.