Daniel Gottlieb Steibelt (1765-1823) was a German composer. He was a contemporary and bitter rival of Beethoven, refusing to be in a room with him after being humiliated in a piano dual. Several of his later concertos have been recorded - here is the 4th: • Harp Concerto (Piano C... (soloist is a harp in this recording, but it's written for piano) and the 6th: • Daniel Gottlieb - Conc... (just a solo reduction on this one). The 3rd, 5th, and 7th have been recorded by Howard Shelley on the Hyperion label, and can all now be found on KZfaq (too many links to post, as they do separate videos for each movement, but a simple search will find them). But to my knowledge, the first 2 have never been recorded in any form, which is where I come in. IMSLP has scores for both, and I have now also done the second: • Daniel Steibelt; Piano... . (There is apparently an 8th concerto as well, featuring a chorus, one of the first to do so, but I've found neither recording nor manuscript of this.)
Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_...
IMSLP: imslp.org/wiki/Category:Steib...
Movements:
0:00 - I. Allegro
15:05 - II. Rondo --
18:42 - Pastorale (technically still part of the 2nd movement)
The score has numerous serious errors - half of the parts had a missing measure in the 1st movement, causing them to not line up, so it was fun figuring out where they were supposed to go - which is not the same place on every part. Also copious missing accidentals, I've done my best to correct them. Additionally, the keyboard part is written as a solo reduction, and it's not always clear when it's supposed to be playing and when it should yield to the orchestra. I generally silenced it when it was doubling parts on other instruments, but there was a good deal of guesswork in this process. The tempo was a bit of a tricky choice. There are some very fast runs of 32nd notes in the 1st movement, which might be difficult to play at this tempo, but if I slow it down enough to make those sound more reasonable, the rest of the movement really drags. I've compromised a bit by adding rallento's on some of those runs.
Disclaimer: Yes, it's synthesized. Obviously real musicians with real instruments would be vastly superior, but this simulated performance is better than nothing at all, which is what existed previously. My greatest wish is that these videos will inspire someone with the means to arrange a real performance and hopefully record and publish it so we can hear them in their full glory. If that someone is you, or you know of an existing recording of this, please let me know and I may add a link to this description.