During the second concert in the Flanders Festival’s “Beethoven in Pocketsize” series in Ghent, his Second Symphony was played as a piano trio, with Midori Seiler (violin), Mercedes Ruiz Lopez de la Cova (violoncello) and Jos van Immerseel (Hammerflügel). The arrangement, made three years after the symphony, was composed and was published in Vienna in 1805. The statement on the title page that the arrangement is by Beethoven himself may have been put there to boost sales; in Carl Czerny’s “Anekdoten und Notizen über Beethoven” (1852) he says: “The arrangement of the 2 nd symphony as a piano trio is by Ries. Beethoven gave me some bits to change that he was not satisfied with.” Ferdinand Ries and Carl Czerny were well-known students of Beethoven’s. If this is correct, then the arrangement is by Ries, and was corrected by Czerny, under Beethoven’s supervision. No matter who wrote it, it’s a beautiful score, one intended not to reduce the Symphony, but rather to enrich it
Jos van Immerseel
Translation by Anne Hudgkinson
You can rewatch this concert on Evil Penguin TV (€3,5 for non-subscribers)
