Concerto no. 2 for piano and orchestra (B-flat major) op. 19

Judging from its opus number and internal numbering, the B-flat major concerto is Beethoven's second piano concerto. This is what we read in every concert programme and on every CD cover. However, the order is quite different if we look at its genesis: the B-flat major concerto is actually Beethoven's first piano concerto. He composed an early version of it in Bonn, possibly even at the end of the 1780s, at the latest in 1790. Its numbering as the 'Second Piano Concerto' has to do with its performance history. In his early days in Vienna, Beethoven showed off with a 'very new' concerto: the C major Concerto op. 15, now known as his 'First'. But at the same time he revised his earlier B-flat major concerto.

In the 1790s Beethoven gave many public performances of a piano concerto in Vienna, Prague, Berlin and Pressburg (Bratislava). Unfortunately we do not always know which of these two piano concertos he played. He may have played an earlier version of op. 19 at an academy of his teacher Haydn on 19 December 1795. The first performance of the concerto of which we are absolutely certain occurred in October 1798, when Beethoven set out on a concert tour to Prague and took the third version of op. 19 with him. While in Prague he wrote it out again to produce the definitive fourth version. This is the one he performed, together with op. 15. (J.R.)