Beethoven Piano Your resource for the piano music of Ludwig van Beethoven

author: Ludwig van Beethoven asin: 0486284425 binding: Paperback list price: $14.95 USD amazon price: $11.66 USD

Features 2 widely performed concertos in authoritative 2-piano playing editions edited by Franz Kullak.

asin: B00000DH4T binding: Audio CD list price: $8.99 USD amazon price: $35.20 USD

Not many people know that Beethoven actually turned his one and only Violin Concerto into a piano concerto. Most critics and musical scholars have had a good time trashing the arrangement (what other opportunities do you get for dumping on Beethoven, after all?), but the fact is that it's no better or worse than any number of similar things that Bach did routinely, and it's fun to hear it once and a while. And one crucial element--the first-movement cadenza--has actually yielded valuable information to violinists regarding what Beethoven himself would have done with this theoretically improvised passage. Coupled with the not-quite-so-unknown Triple Concerto--both works are played with real eloquence by all concerned--here's a Beethoven disc that deserves a place in most collections. And at the Naxos price, this is a bargain in the best sense. --David Hurwitz