Jacob Bogaart - Beethoven Piano Concertos 3 & 4 (2021)

Ernest Bour, conductor par excellence of 20th century music, guided his orchestras with indisputable conviction through the most difficult modern scores.But also the Baroque and the Viennese School were studied down to the smallest detail and stripped of routine practice and common misconceptions. Bour’s Beethoven sounds transparent, dynamic and light.‘Totally cleansed of caked – on romantic grease’, as critics wrote.

Together with pianist Jacob Bogaart the Urtext was studied as well as the manuscripts (if still available) and nearly everything that had been written about Beethoven, i.e. metronomic tempi, the original instrumentation, the function of the pedal, nowadays, and on a period grand piano.

Furthermore the performance practice in general and specifically with Beethoven as a soloist or conductor and, last but not least, the importance of the dialogue phrasing between piano and orchestra. The tempi then were – presumably – higher, especially because of the lighter mechanics of the instruments. Beethoven himself played fast and very expressively.

All together a challenging quest that resulted in the synthesis of modern piano practice and that of nearly two centuries ago.