Paul Pabst - Piano Concerto in E flat major, Op. 82

Paul Pabst

 

(15 May 1854 - 9 June 1897)

pianist, composer, and Professor of Piano at Moscow Conservatory.

 

Piano Concerto in E flat major, Op. 82

       

I. Allegro maestoso [0:00]
II. Andante cantabile - [12:28]
III. Allegro assai [21:29]

 

In 1885 he wrote his only orchestral work, the Piano Concerto in E-flat major. Its first performances were in St. Petersburg and Moscow, with Pabst as soloist, and with Anton Rubinstein conducting^[. The score was then lost, but has since been discovered.

Both Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff dedicated works to Pabst. Pabst was in illustrious company, a

nd this is reflected in his Piano Concerto.

 

It is an exquisite romantic work in three movements, lasting 33 minutes, full of wonderful tunes and a fiendishly difficult but lyrical solo part. on 19 April 2005, 120 years after its premiere, Pabst's 'Lost Concerto' was performed by Panagiotis Trochopoulos at a concert given in Minsk by the Belarusian State Academic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marius Stravinsky. A live recording was made by producer David Kent-Watson, and filmed for the documentary 'The Lost Concerto'

 

This live recording was used for the world premiere CD release of Pavel Pabst's Piano Concerto,

now available on Cameo Classics CC9033CD

A piece for piano and orchestra by Russian composer and pianist Pavel [Paul] Pabst (1854-1897), his only orchestral work. Born Christian Georg Paul Pabst in Königsberg, East Prussia, the young pianist was fortunate to meet Anton Rubinstein when he came to Königsberg to oversee a musical event. Pabst moved to Russia, where he was quickly offered a post at the Moscow Conservatory by Nikolai Rubinstein, Anton's brother. In Moscow, Pabst frequently gave recitals (occasionally together with the young Sergei Rachmaninov), and he came to be regarded as one of the foremost virtuosos of his generation. Pyotr Tchaikovsky described him as a "pianist of divine elegance" and a "pianist blessed by God himself". Pabst was particularly renowned for his interpretations of Schumann and Liszt. His own compositions were mostly for piano - his fantasies and paraphrases on music from famous Russian operas and ballets are fairly well known - but he did publish one orchestral work, the Piano Concerto Op. 82. Pabst gave the premiere himself in November 1882 in Moscow with conductor Max Ermansdorfer.

 

Pabst was considered one of the greatest pianists of his day, admired even by the great Franz Liszt. He and the young Sergei Rachmaninoff performed many concerts together.

Until now Pabst has been known as a composer only for his piano transcriptions of the music for the ballet and opera by Tchaikovsky. He also fingered the piano concerto by Anton Arensky, and was the soloist at its premiere. Pabst's piano transcriptions were loved by the most outstanding pianists of the time, and were considered to be on a par with those by Liszt himself.

Paul Pabst died suddenly in 1897 in Moscow and was buried at Vvedenskoye Cemetery. His funeral wreath from the Russian Musical Society contained the epitaph: To Honored Artist - Indefatigable Professor - Hardly simply a man.