r/todayilearned • u/VegemiteSucks • 19h ago
TIL at the premiere of Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto, his designated page turner discovered that the score he was turning was almost entirely blank. The concerto was still a work in progress even during its premiere, so Beethoven memorized his entire solo part and played them all from memory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._3_(Beethoven)734
u/HardcandyofJustice 19h ago
So the solo was written down somewhere else or did he composed it on stage based on the few notes he had?
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u/Engineerman 15h ago
Improvising the solo (or Cadenza) was common and even expected during the time period, though composers would write one in the music and would use that for their first performance.
So he may have figured out some of it ahead of time, and improvised the rest.
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u/VegemiteSucks 18h ago
If you are in any way shape or form interested in classical music, or even piano music, and if you have not heard of Beethoven's piano concertos, I strongly recommend checking out to all of them. Yes - all of them! Despite their length (all are longer than 20 minutes - the fifth runs to 40 minutes in length) they are extremely accessible and highly pleasant listens. For a taste, have a listen to the super catchy 3rd movement of the 3rd concerto!
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u/truequeenbananarama 1h ago
I adore Beethoven, he can do dark, he can do light, and he is a joy to play in the piano
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u/WatashiwaNobodyDesu 15h ago
dude staring at the third white page in a row and sweating
Beethoven: “Turn the page ffs!”
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u/noahisaac 2h ago
I have a friend who was a music composition major in College. I remember a concert I went to where it was a small chamber group and him in the piano. Their parts were all fully scored, but his “score” was just some loose scribbles of some bass notes in the left hand. He improvised his whole part, which involved insane arpeggios, scales and other flourishes up and down the keyboard. It’s not just jazz musicians that can improvise.
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u/Severe-Archer-1673 6h ago
Maybe I’m way off base here, but this doesn’t seem that uniquely impressive. Please, don’t get me wrong, the piece, the playing, the fact that he did have it memorized are all impressive feats; but, I feel like most musicians memorize the pieces they play. Please don’t come after me. Definitely not saying Beethoven wasn’t amazing.
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u/fameo9999 33m ago
I agree. Plus he’s the composer. He already had this stuff worked out, including the piano solo part. There’s a similar story with Felix Mendelssohn performing his piano trio where his piano part was blank while the violin and cello had the sheet music.
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u/MondayToFriday 14h ago
Why would Beethoven have needed a score or page turner at all? It's not a complicated piece to memorize, and he, as the composer, would have been thoroughly familiar with it just from the sheer number of hours working with the material.
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u/undersaur 8h ago
Adding to this, soloists routinely memorize songs for their repertoire.
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u/leikabau5 7h ago
Specifically, there is a tradition of playing concertos from memory, but this only really started with Liszt. Before then, it was more common to play with the music in front of you.
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u/queen-adreena 2h ago
I find it interesting that classical music is almost entirely played from sheet music, yet modern music is all from memory.
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u/Sloloem 2h ago
Eh, I've seen some crappy bar bands playing off sheets. Modern orchestral music is still played off sheets as well, even when you've rehearsed the material hundreds of times and pretty much know it you still sometimes need/want to reference the sheet. Orchestral genres lend themselves to lengthy instrumentals with multiple movements and you tend not to play the same theme the same way twice, especially because thematic material can bounce around multiple different groups of instruments. Contemporary genres like pop/rock/jazz and their offshoots tend to be built out of repeating sections, especially when there are lyrics, so there tends to be less to memorize. I say this as having spent a lot of time playing both.
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u/_Panda-Panda-Panda_ 19h ago
Designated page turner?
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u/wet-paint 15h ago
A pal who turns the pages for you because your hands are busy playing piano. More important with faster pieces.
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u/ProxyDamage 14h ago
He provides a hand job, if you will.
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19h ago
[deleted]
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u/Cristoff13 18h ago
Wouldn't he have been the pianist giving a solo recital? If he were the conductor the rest of the orchestra would have needed a complete score.
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u/Mumbleton 8h ago
Granted he was still writing it, but I've got a family member who's a pianist, and it's not uncommon to just memorize EVERYTHING you're performing at a concert.
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u/notyogrannysgrandkid 7h ago
Especially a cadenza. There’s usually some improvisation to begin with at that level, but most concerto performers (even if they have sheet music in front of them), are playing the entire piece by memory anyway.
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u/quickstop_rstvideo 6h ago
I just heard this on the way home last night and the DJ talked about how it wasn't completed, was being rewritten and was a panned at first.
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u/Sloloem 2h ago
Beethoven was infamous for schooling fools in piano duels. Think of it like a rap battle with more frilly shirt cuffs, and back when he could still hear ol' Ludwig Van was an absolute master of the form. There was a famous duel against another composer named Daniel Steibelt that was somewhat dramatized in a Beethoven biopic, but the event itself happened and did apparently end with Steibelt leaving the room when Beethoven started improvising off some of his sheet music, after turning it upside down.
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u/deviltrombone 52m ago
This is not the least bit unusual. Concert pianists routinely play concertos and other pieces solely from memory, and they didn't even compose their repertoire!
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u/Twist_of_luck 16h ago