Beethoven: Piano Concertos in D, Op. 61 & No. 4

At the public première of the Fourth Piano Concerto in 1808, Beethoven performed the piano part very ‘capriciously’ according to his pupil Carl Czerny, playing many more notes than are to be found in the printed edition. A clear indication of what Beethoven played comes from his copyist’s orchestral score, in which the outer movements contain annotations in the composer's hand. These have been transcribed by Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper who describes this rarely recorded 1808 version as ‘more sparkling, virtuosic and sophisticated than the standard one’.