Credits:

Howard Griffiths, Frankfurt Brandenburg State Orchestra, Claire Huangci

Description:

A collection of Beethoven's rare repertoire, including the piano version of the Violin Concerto! Howard Griffiths & the Brandenburg State Frankfurt Orchestra present an album of relatively rare Beethoven repertoire. Of particular note is the "Piano Concerto in D major, Op. 61a" with Claire Huanchi as soloist. The original is the well-known Violin Concerto, which Beethoven himself arranged into a piano concerto at Clementi's suggestion, the "Sixth Piano Concerto. It contains cadenzas that were not written for the violin concerto, especially a large cadenza with timpani in the first movement. Although this cadenza is often used in violin concertos, there are not many recordings of this cadenza as a piano concerto, which makes it very valuable. The "Music for Knight's Ballet" is a collection of short pieces around one minute in length, written when Beethoven was 20 years old, and is lined with cheerful tunes. The album closes with "Wellington's Victory."Also known as the War Symphony, it was written about the Battle of Vitoria, a British victory over the French, and is the largest orchestral work Beethoven ever wrote. Claire Huanchi is a pianist born in New York City to parents of Chinese origin. She made her Carnegie Hall debut at the age of nine and performed at the White House at the age of ten, earning her attention as a child prodigy. He studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Eleanor Sokoloff and Gary Graffman, met Allie Vardi at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition, which he says was a turning point in his life after participating at age 16, and entered the Hannover University of Music and Drama the following year to study with Mr. Vardi. She was the youngest competitor in the International Music Competition and won second prize, and in 2018 she won the Geza Anda Competition, and has performed well in many other competitions. Currently, while working as an assistant to Mr. Vardi, she is actively performing concerts and recordings mainly in Germany and the United States. Tokyo M-Plus