Rediscovered Beethoven Piano Trios To Recieve NY Premieres at Alice Tully Hall 5/18

On May 18, 2010 at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, The International Beethoven Project presents the New York premieres of three Beethoven chamber works. First and foremost on the program is the only completed movement of the recently rediscovered Piano Trio in E Flat Major, Hess 47, which received its world premiere to critical acclaim in Chicago last spring. The evening will also feature the New York premieres of two other virtually unknown Beethoven trios - Piano Trio in D Major, Anhang 3, and Piano Trio in E Flat Major, Opus 63. The beloved "Archduke" Piano Trio completes the concert program, which will be performed by The Beethoven Project Trio - an ensemble founded in 2008 that comprises three critically-acclaimed musicians: pianist George Lepauw, violinist Sang Mee Lee and cellist Wendy Warner.

Lepauw, a concert pianist who resides in Paris and Chicago when not touring, was first told about the existence of a partial manuscript of an unknown Beethoven piece in 2007 by Dominique Prévot, president of the Association Beethoven France. Working with James F. Green, editor of the New Hess Catalog of Beethoven's Works, and members of the American Beethoven Society, Lepauw was able to secure the score of Piano Trio in E Flat Major, Hess 47. He gave the work's world premiere in Chicago with the Beethoven Project Trio on March 1, 2009, an event that received international media attention. According to the Chicago Tribune, the discovery and performance of this piece has "cast revealing light on the master's working methods."

The world premiere recording, produced by the legendary 17-time Grammy winner Max Wilcox at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, is scheduled for release on Cedille Records (distributed by Naxos) on May 25.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Trio for Piano, Violin and Violoncello in E-Flat Major, Hess 47, 1st movt A New York Premiere
The Piano Trio in E Flat Major, Hess 47 is an arrangement of Beethoven's String Trio Opus 3, composed ca. 1794. Beethoven set out to arrange the work for piano trio sometime between 1800 and 1805, but for reasons unknown, only completed the first movement. The original manuscript is preserved at the Beethovenhaus in Bonn, and to this day, no performance edition has been published. For the world premiere in 2009, the Beethoven Trio manually compiled a performance edition of the 12-minute movement of the work; a published edition is scheduled for the end of 2010.

Trio for Piano, Violin and Violoncello in D Major, Kinsky/Halm Anhang 3 A New York Premiere
The Trio in D Major (1799) is an original Beethoven work in two movements. Two missing pages from the first movement - a total of 33 bars - were skillfully reconstructed and arranged by Robert McConnell to create a complete work, and the trio had its world premiere in 2007 in Genoa, Italy. The Trio was originally mistaken as a work of Mozart's, and was even logged by Ludwig Ritter von Köchel as Anhang 52a in his Mozart catalogue; but in 1926, scholars conducted a reassessment, and it was recognized as a work of Beethoven's. A contributing factor to the discrepancies surrounding this work is that the handwriting is that of Kaspar Karl van Beethoven, one of the composer's brothers who frequently acted as a copyist for his older brother. The manuscript survives in an autograph copy preserved at the British Library in London.

Trio for Piano, Violin and Violoncello, in E-Flat major, Opus 63 A New York Premiere
Beethoven's Trio in E-Flat Major, Opus 63 was published in 1806 in Vienna. A reworking of his Wind Octet (Opus 103) and String Quintet (Opus 4), this four-movement piece is fraught with passionate romantic drama, foreshadowing Beethoven's middle-period manner. The composer's first version was written for wind octet in 1792 (although it wasn't published until 1830). The material was then transformed into the String Quintet Opus 4 in 1795, with significant changes and revisions. The final version, for piano trio, most closely relates to the quintet, and was completed in 1805 or early 1806 - a full 13 years after the work's initial conception.

Trio for Piano, Violin and Violoncello, in B-Flat Major, Opus 97, "Archduke"
Written in 1811 but not published until 1816, Piano Trio in B Flat Major, Opus 97, was dedicated to the Archduke Rudolph of Austria, Beethoven's pupil, patron and friend. It is from this dedication that the work takes its nickname, though the work itself also channels innate nobility. It was first played in public in a charity concert in Vienna in April 1814; Beethoven's last public appearance as a pianist.