Gneixendorf Music – A Winter Journey

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Gneixendorf Music – A Winter Journey is a 2019 piano concerto by Brett Dean to be performed on both an upright piano with the half-blow pedal activated and a grand piano. As his previous compositions Pastoral Symphony and Testament, it is inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven, specifically his stay in a farmhouse in Gneixendorf late in his life, where he revised his Symphony No. 9 and completed his String Quartet No. 16.

The work was commissioned by

Berwaldhallen on February 13, 2020, next to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5
. Beethoven's concerto is quoted in the work, and the orchestration is the same except for the addition of a percussionist and an alto flute. The three movements' titles quote remarks by Beethoven:

  1. That sounds like a breaking axle – after his reaction after first hearing about Gneixendorf.
  2. Difficult decisions. Must it be? – after annotations in his String Quartet No. 16's final movement.
  3. Applause my friends, the comedy is over – after his alleged last utterance in his deathbed.

The muffled upright piano is used in the first movement to depict Beethoven's aural isolation caused by his deafness.[2]

Reception

Nicholas Ringskog Ferrada-Noli from Dagens Nyheter summed up the work as a nice and creative comment on Beethoven's final piano concerto, noting that while representing a physically weakened Beethoven the "mostly energetic and intense" music conveyed "Beethoven's inner life, turbulent until the end".[3]

References

  1. ^ Brett Dean's new Piano Concerto receives world premiere with Jonathan Biss and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Intermusica, 10 February 2020
  2. ^ Brett Dean's new Piano Concerto rehears Beethoven. Boosey & Hawkes, February 2020
  3. ^ Konsertrecension: Jonathan Biss tolkar Beethoven imponerande men inte briljant. Dagens Nyheter, 16 February 2020
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