This project featuring the complete recording of Beethoven’s piano concertos on original Beethoven fortepianos has close ties to the performances at original historical sites in Vienna. During the past years the concert series ‘Resound Beethoven’ has brought back Beethoven’s works to the places where they were originally performed. For Gottlieb Wallisch this was a unique experience, a veritable immersion in the sound world of Beethoven’s times: “The combination of the fortepiano sound with the original-sound orchestra results in a fascinating opportunity to shed new tonal light on Beethoven’s music and to understand it in new ways. The sound of this fortepiano from the period around 1820 captivates the listener with its special colour in the various registers and its elegant purity while already discreetly looking into the future with its somewhat greater volume.” Beethoven’s transcription of his Violin Concerto, op.61, for piano and orchestra – in music history the rare case of a transfer of a work from a stringed instrument to a keyboard instrument – gains authenticity and musical logic through performance on the fortepiano. His Rondo WoO6 is heard in a first-time recording; it originally formed the concluding movement of his Piano Concerto no.2.

- Conrad Graf, c.1818 (historic Beethoven piano)

- Conrad Graf, c.1832/24

- Franz Bayer, c.1825