Rank the Beethoven concertos

[Todd]

- just kinda boring -
piano 2

I challenge you to a duel, sir!

[Todd]

5
4
3
VC
1
2
Choral Fantasy
Triple Concerto

[Todd]

The first movement is the problem for me as it is for you, but I did a quick look at track timings and the performances that I most happily tolerate - Milstein, Heifetz, Francescatti, Zehetmair, etc. - all clock in right at 21-22 minutes.

Wolfsthal and Kopatchinskaja might be worth hearing.

[Florestan]

Wolfsthal

Yesss!

[classicalgeek]

My absolute favorite:
PC4

Love them:
PC3
PC5
Violin
Choral Fantasy (A guilty pleasure - I know a lot of people look down on it. There's a performance with Argerich and Ozawa on YouTube that I just adore!)

Like them:
PC1
PC2
Triple

[Daverz]

PC3
Violin Concerto
PC 1
Triple
PC 2

I'm burned out on PC4 and don't find PC5 very interesting.

[Holden]

All five LvB PCs are excellent and the toss up in the rankings between PC1 and PC2 was purely arbitrary. I suppose, apart from 4 and 5, pick holes in all the other concertos but the  bottom line is I enjoy listening to all of them.

[Wanderer]

1: Piano Concerto No. 4
2: Piano Concerto No. 5, Violin Concerto
3: Piano Concerto No. 3, Triple Concerto, Piano Concerto No. 1
4: Piano Concerto No. 2

[Florestan]

I challenge you to a duel, sir!

I will gladly be one of your asistants!

[JBS]

I will gladly be one of your asistants!

And I will gladly be a second for Brian.
The Lisiecki I listened to last night was the first recording I can remember which made PCs 1 and 2 into something interesting.
Even the Divine Martha can't keep them from being a bore.

[Florestan]

And I will gladly be a second for Brian.
The Lisiecki I listened to last night was the first recording I can remember which made PCs 1 and 2 into something interesting.
Even the Divine Martha can't keep them from being a bore.

I just love the 2nd but then again give me Mozart any time over Beethoven.   

[JBS]

I just love the 2nd but then again give me Mozart any time over Beethoven.   

Then get Lisiecki: he brings out the Mozartian similarities in PCs 1 and 2.

[Florestan]

Then get Lisiecki: he brings out the Mozartian similarities in PCs 1 and 2.

Thanks for the tip, I will.

[Wanderer]

I don't quite understand the general lack of appreciation for the Violin Concerto.

I don't understand the dislike, either; although this only seems to be a forum thing (glitch in the matrix? 😁). I think it's a sublime work, complimentary to the Pastoral Symphony. Furthermore, the cadenza Beethoven wrote for the piano & orchestra transcription is another stroke of genius (it further elevates the work and highlights the ingenious use of timpani throughout) and I'm really happy it has found its way to performances of the violin concerto itself (most notably in the Kremer/Harnoncourt rendition).

Speaking of cadenzas, the third and most grand and elaborate cadenza Beethoven wrote for the First Piano Concerto is a great favourite. Medtner's cadenzas for the Fourth Concerto and Alkan's gargantuan cadenza for the first movement of the Third Concerto are also very close to my heart.

I've never counted the Choral Fantasia among the concerti, so I've omitted it from my list. I do love the work, though.

I used to vehemently dislike the Second Concerto. After years of background listening (mostly via complete concerto sets), my dislike has somewhat lessened. I now consider it an innocuous divertissement (at best). 🤷‍♂️

[The new erato]

Complete ly agree about the violin Concerto, which I consider one of the great ones, although a rather particular one.

[vers la flamme]

Piano Concerto No.4
Violin Concerto
Piano Concerto No.5
Piano Concerto No.3
Triple Concerto
Piano Concerto No.1
Piano Concerto No.2

Love them all, though, save the first two piano concertos, neither of which I'm terribly familiar with.

[Brian]

Speaking of cadenzas, the third and most grand and elaborate cadenza Beethoven wrote for the First Piano Concerto is a great favourite.

I love the big huge cadenza option in the First. Any favorite recordings that use the Medtner and Alkan?

[prémont]

I don't understand the dislike, either; although this only seems to be a forum thing (glitch in the matrix? 😁). I think it's a sublime work, complimentary to the Pastoral Symphony. Furthermore, the cadenza Beethoven wrote for the piano & orchestra transcription is another stroke of genius (it further elevates the work and highlights the ingenious use of timpani throughout) and I'm really happy it has found its way to performances of the violin concerto itself (most notably in the Kremer/Harnoncourt rendition).

I think Wolfgang Schneiderhan was the first to use the cadenza from the piano version. But unlike you I find the style of this cadenza unsuited for the violin concerto.

[Wanderer]

I love the big huge cadenza option in the First. Any favorite recordings that use the Medtner and Alkan?

To my knowledge, there's unfortunately just one commercial recording of Beethoven's Fourth containing Medtner's cadenzas, ably performed by Jerome Lowenthal on a double CD that also contains Fourth Concerto cadenzas by Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Clara Schumann, Rzewski, Busoni, von Bülow, Rubinstein, Godowsky and Dohnányi. Some are more successful than others, but Medtner's are indeed magnificent and linger in the memory for their particular insightfulness (and a quite potent visionary quality in the first movement), matching the work's ethos (even though the writing is definitely Medtnerian). The Fourth Concerto was a specialty of Medtner's in concert and it shows in the very inventive and imaginative ways he chose to manipulate and intertwine the work's themes - e.g. in the third movement cadenza I particularly enjoy the way he ruminates on themes from the second movement as well as on those from the third. The juxtaposition proves very powerful.

The Alkan cadenza has regrettably not yet been recorded (or recently performed at all) as part of an actual performance of the Third Concerto. [Too grand, too ambitious, too difficult, too bold (how can one not admire the moment the Fifth Symphony dauntlessly manifests itself!), too Alkanian? Who cares, it's the 21st century!]
However, Alkan's transcription for solo piano of the first movement of Beethoven's Third Concerto (cadenza included) has been electrifyingly recorded by Marc-André Hamelin (on Hyperion) and more recently by Leonardo Pierdomenico (also marvelous, on Piano Classics). Both are very highly recommended.