George Lepauw interview on Beethoven Premiere

George, congratulations and thank you for this magnificent concert here at Murphy.

George Lepauw: Thank you so much, Peter. This is very special; it is a very special moment right now. I'm still in the moment and still feeling the emotion.

The end of a long road to bring these pieces to America for the first time.

GL: The road is over two centuries long, but at the same time it is also the beginning of a road. We are thrilled to be here in Chicago, live with WFMT, and this is a really special moment.

You performed in the on the Fazioli piano, and Wendy and Sang Mee Lee just performed on some beautiful and amazing instruments from the Stradivarius Society — a Strad and a Guarneri.

Wendy Warner: They are beautiful, and we are very lucky.

When did you get them in your hands for the first time?

Sang Mee Lee: We had a chance to try them last December and they even let us pick and choose a little bit. This week we determined again, Monday or Tuesday, for me and Wendy.

WW: I've been playing on and off for two months on this Guarneri cello and I'm playing on a very special bow, through the Strad Society. It's a Tourte bow.

And you have another beautiful French bow, one of the best.

SML: This is a Picat, and it is easily the best bow I have ever played on.

Thank you, Wendy and Sang. George, you and I spoke a little bit, earlier this week in the studios at WFMT, and we talked a bit about Beethoven and about some of the instruments you were playing on this evening, and this beautiful Murphy Hall.

GL: You know, as I said, you go back in time and it's interesting for a couple reasons. I love the Murphy and one of the reasons we ended up using that location, if you see the front, you have these tremendous columns. And it is absolutely proportioned perfectly in the classical style. And it really fits what we are doing with the Beethoven. You think of Beethoven as a composer who was in that sense, very strong, very noble. And certainly, that fits the description for the hall. The outside and you walk in you really are transported into a different time and place you could imagine yourself in Beethoven's time in Vienna; or at least in the Europe of the 18th and 19th centuries. And, it's just a great way to do these premieres, because we're doing these almost over 200 years after they were supposed to have been done. And in that sense it's just amazing. We are bringing in a piano for the performance, a beautiful 9'2" Fazioli concert grand. So that will be really interesting. Of course, Beethoven never had the possibility of playing on a great piano like that. But I'm sure he would have loved the option. So in that sense, that's the modern edge.

GL: We also are using instruments that are not modern; the string instruments are not modern. Of course they are retooled for modern concert halls. We have a beautiful set loaned to use from the Stradivarius society. A 1739 Pietro Guarneri cello, which is one of the most beautiful cellos I have ever seen. It is just stunning, visually in every way; the shape, the varnish, every detail of the wood. Wendy Warner is our great cellist in this project. She is also going to be using a Tourte bow, which if you know anything about bows, is the Stradivari of bows, and it's not only a great bow but it's a bow that has encrusted diamonds in the frog. I may get my facts a little confused, but I'm pretty sure that both the bow and the cello were used for the première and the first recording of the Elgar concerto in London. So that also has an interesting history. And it's got such a beautiful sound. Very warm and it projects tremendously through any sized hall. Now, our violinist, who is also, like Wendy, a local star, grew up here with Wendy. Sang Mee Lee will be using a Stradivarius violin from 1703 called the Natchez. It is an absolutely beautiful instrument. Some people don't know about Stradivaris, but there are still a few in the world. But they are getting rarer. Sometimes they disappear or something happens to them. But those who survive - the great ones that survive - are really priceless in every sense of the word. She will also be using a beautiful Picat bow which is between Tourte and Picat. Both Stradivari and Guarneri, names of bow making in 19th century France.

It is like the old saying, to know the present and to know the future; you have to know the past. And so it all comes together. I wanted to get a definition for those who don't know what the international Beethoven project is.

GL: I've really had a fascination with Beethoven for a long time, and other composers. I give equal time to a lot. But, the project really came out of this particular find: the premieres. I had not envisioned the project until these came together. When the project came together for the trio premieres, it made sense to me and crystallized in my mind that I could turn this into a long term project which I don't mind carrying until the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth in 2012, which is coming up faster than we imagined, and there is a lot of Beethoven to play, so it will keep me busy until then, I think. I did not seek them out, per say, and it's really just a matter of coincidence, timing, and — I suppose — luck. I was visiting in Paris, about two years ago now, and I had read about the premier of the Op. 63 piano trio by Beethoven in France. And I thought to myself, this is very strange. How could a piano trio by Beethoven be premiered, even in France. I mean, France is a place where most everything has been played and you are surprised when you read that kind of news. So I tracked down the president of the French Beethoven Association, Dominique Prévot, and he told me that he had organized the premiere and it looked like a great find. It had been premiered before in Vienna during Beethoven's lifetime. But it never came out and wasn't published in a large number, so they had been able to ascertain that in France it had not been premiered, and certainly not in the United States where no scores had been available. So that's where it started and we devised a plan to put together the American premiere of the Op. 63.

GL: The world premiere is a transcription, by Beethoven, which means it wasn't exactly the way it was originally, because Beethoven took a lot of liberties of an early string trio. It was reworked so the string trios from about 1792 and he reworked it to a piano trio, we don't know exactly when, but sometime between 1800 and 1805, we believe. It's a 5 movement string trio. He only arranged it for piano trio completely in the first movement and the first 43 bars of the second movement. As so many other projects in Beethoven's and other composer's lives, other things took precedence and he had to let it aside and never got back to it. So that's why it lay untouched and wasn't found until later. Now the original manuscript is in the possession of the Beethoven house in Bonn.

GL: The piano trio in D major which is an American premiere is an original composition which was originally catalogued as a Mozart piece. It had a Köchel number, so it's the only Beethoven work to be given a Köchel number. And it was discovered later with a lot of research. Stanley Sadie was part of that. But let me tie something into our project that we really haven't spoken about yet. The archduke piano trio is a great piece of course.

There's new music and then there's a little ditty in the second half.

GL: Yes, that's a nice way to put it. A little ditty that we'll play for you. It's about 45 minutes long ditty, but it's a beautiful piece. I'm sure most people know it, and for those who don't, this will be a great discovery as well, and for those who do we hope we will give you convincing performance. But one of the reasons why I thought of tying this piece into the program was because it is one of the later piano trios that was premiered in 1816 officially. But in 1814, it was performed at a private event for a charity concert. And Beethoven played the piano part. And why this is significant especially next to these earlier compositions, is because Beethoven's last public appearance as a performer was playing the premiere of the archduke in 1814 at this charity event. In that sense, it's for me it's just significant as a pianist, because Beethoven was also known as a pianist and by that time he was also nearly completely deaf. We are not sure if the performance was in that sense successful, but I'm sure it was very touching. And the other thing is that Beethoven left off his performing career for charity. That is also significant and we really do want to reach out with this project for charitable causes, education purposes. We do want to perform in schools, public schools, universities, and music schools. We really want to share our enthusiasm with young and old, and we hope to be able to do that throughout the life of this project, especially with these trios and such a great group of Chicago musicians.

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