Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra

Music is an art that provides enjoyment and entertainment. But for performers and publishers, and for those who compose it, it is also their work and their means of earning a living. Ludwig van Beethoven once wished that there existed “a shop for art […] where an artist only had to hand over his works to get back what he needs”, and he was critical of the fact that a composer still had to be “half a businessman”.

Robert Schumann enjoyed no financial success with his Concerto for cello and orchestra from 1851. He lacked experience with the instrument, his work was rejected by the cellist Emil Bockemühl, and he initially also failed to find a publisher for it. It was not until 1853 that Schumann was able to sell it to the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel as part of an overall “package” together with his Fairy tales for piano trio and his Children’s ball for piano duet. He never lived to hear his concerto’s world premiere, a further seven years afterwards. But this unpromising start hasn’t prevented Schumann’s Concerto from becoming a firm fixture in the cello canon. Beethoven, by nature “half a businessman”, had less trouble making money from his String Quintet in 1801, with two publishers fighting over the rights to publish it. For the first six months, its dedicatee, Count Moritz von Fries, had exclusive rights to it, after which Beethoven handed the work over to Breitkopf & Härtel for 171 guilders – though as yet unaware that von Fries had given the music to the Viennese publisher Artaria, and a pirate print had already appeared. A considerable dispute ensued that resulted in Beethoven being able to ensure that Artaria was not allowed to publish the quintet until 14 days after Breitkopf’s edition appeared.

Peters Verlag of Leipzig did excellent business with From Holberg’s time. Suite in olden style, as did its composer Edvard Grieg, who wrote it in 1884 to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of Ludvig Holberg, the Danish-Norwegian poet. He wrote it initially for piano and violin, then arranged it for string orchestra. It is cast in a neo-Baroque style that Grieg rather disparagingly described as “with a wig on it”. But it was soon being performed so often that the composer was able to use the proceeds to finish building his house at Troldhaugen, devoid of all financial worries. The Polish composer Wojciech Kilar also earns his living with his music – as a successful film composer for films such as The Pianist and Dracula. We here perform his Orawa.