Gneixendorf Music – A Winter Journey

Gneixendorf Music – A Winter Journey is a piano concerto by Brett Dean from 2019 to be performed in 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 in Ludwig van Beethoven, specifically in 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 Jonathan Biss and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra as the final installment in a project for five new compositions for piano and orchestra to be coupled along with Beethoven's five piano concertos,[1] and premiered by Biss and the Swedish Radio Symphony under David Afkham in the 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, in order to depict Beethoven's aural isolation caused by his deafness at the time.[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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