BERLIN 1923 - Beethoven & Schulhoff: Piano Concertos Herbert Schuch, WDR Sinfonieorchester & Tung-Chieh Chuang

• Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827): Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15:
• 1 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15: I. Allegro con brio 17:52
• 2 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15: II. Largo 11:05
• 3 van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15: III. Rondo. Allegro 09:15
• Erwin Schulhoff (1894 - 1942): Concerto for Piano & Small Orchestra, Op. 43, WV 66:
• 4 Schulhoff: Concerto for Piano & Small Orchestra, Op. 43, WV 66: I. Molto sostenuto 05:52
• 5 Schulhoff: Concerto for Piano & Small Orchestra, Op. 43, WV 66: II. Sostenuto 07:22
• 6 Schulhoff: Concerto for Piano & Small Orchestra, Op. 43, WV 66: IIIa. Allegro alla Jazz 02:39
• 7 Schulhoff: Concerto for Piano & Small Orchestra, Op. 43, WV 66: IIIb. Subito sostenuto ma alla breve. Alla zingaresca 02:25
• 8 Schulhoff: Concerto for Piano & Small Orchestra, Op. 43, WV 66: IIIc. Tempo I (Allegro molto) 01:15
• Erwin Schulhoff, Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15:
• 9 Schulhoff, van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15: I. Allegro con brio (Cadenza: Schulhoff) 15:02
• Total Runtime 01:12:47

Info for BERLIN 1923 - Beethoven & Schulhoff: Piano Concertos

Beethoven and Schulhoff in dialogue. Schuch: "It's actually very exciting to look at what happened exactly 100 years ago - perhaps because the year 1923 doesn't feel so far away and some things seem to be mirrored. Musically, Erwin Schulhoff's piano concerto is a really interesting work that unfortunately doesn't have the place it could have today. Stylistically, the piano concerto, composed between 11 June and 10 July 1923, is one of those works in which Schulhoff radically explores the dance types of jazz that had taken Europe by storm from America via Paris since the end of the First World War. On paper, these two composers could not be more different. Schulhoff has always spoken out loudly against traditionalism. He was a bit of an iconoclast, but at the same time he was also a talented and very well-trained pianist - a pianist who also wanted to succeed as such. Naturally, he studied the Beethoven piano concertos, played them and ultimately also took the opportunity (like so many other composers before him) to put his own stamp on each work via the cadenza. Schulhoff had already worked out the cadenzas for Ludwig van Beethoven's first four piano concertos in February 1923 - also in Berlin ..." (Excerpt from the booklet text)

Herbert Schuch, piano
WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne
Tung-Chieh Chuang, conductor

Herbert Schuch
The pianist Herbert Schuch has gained a reputation as being among the most interesting musicians of his generation with his strikingly conceived concert programmes and CD recordings. In 2013, he received the ECHO Klassik award for his recording of the piano concerto by Viktor Ullmann and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with the WDR Sinfonieorchester conducted by Olari Elts. In 2014, he issued the fascinating solo CD “invocation” with works by Bach, Liszt, Messiaen, Murail and Ravel, which engages with the sound of bells. He could be heard with this programme in piano recitals at the Salzburg Festival and the Stuttgart Musikfest, and in the Frauenkirche in Dresden and the Philharmonie in Berlin, among other venues. A piano-duet CD with Gülru Ensari, featuring works by Brahms, Hindemith, Stravinsky and Özkan Manav, was issued in early 2017.

Herbert Schuch has worked with a number of renowned orchestras, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, the Residentie Orkest Den Haag, the Bamberg Symphony, the Dresden Philharmonic and the radio orchestras of hr, MDR, WDR, NDR Hannover and Danish Radio. He appears regularly as guest at festivals such as the Heidelberger Frühling, the Kissinger Sommer, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Salzburg Festival. Among the conductors with whom he has enjoyed successful associations are Pierre Boulez, Andrey Boreyko, Douglas Boyd, Lawrence Foster, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Jakub Hrusa, Jun Märkl, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jonathan Nott, Markus Poschner, Michael Sanderling and Alexander Vedernikov.

Recently, Herbert Schuch played with the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra under Valery Gergiev in the Gasteig in Munich, with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in the Berlin Philharmonie, with the Camerata Salzburg, with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and with the National Youth Orchestra of Germany on a European tour. He also made his début with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at the Salzburg Easter Festival and at the Festival Radio France Occitanie Montpellier. In addition, he gave concerts with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Festival Strings Lucerne and the RAI National Symphony Orchestra.

His schedule for the 17/18 season includes fresh invitations to play with the WDR Sinfonieorchester and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, as well as his début in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. As a child, Herbert Schuch also played violin for 10 years and has been an enthusiastic chamber musician ever since. In the summer of 2017, he undertook a trio tour with violinist Julia Fischer and cellist Daniel Müller-Schott.

Herbert Schuch was born in Timișoara, Romania, in 1979. He had his first piano lessons in his native city, before his family moved to Germany in 1988, where he has lived since. He continued his musical studies with Kurt Hantsch and then with Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Recently, Herbert Schuch has been especially influenced by his encounters and work with Alfred Brendel. He created an international stir when he won three major competitions in just one year: the Casagrande Competition, the London International Piano Competition and the International Beethoven Competition in Vienna.

In addition to his performance activities, Herbert Schuch is also involved in the organization “Rhapsody in School,” founded by Lars Vogt, which promotes classical music education in schools.

Booklet for BERLIN 1923 - Beethoven & Schulhoff: Piano Concertos