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After playing the Henry Geehl transcription for solo piano (dated 1941!) I find that it is not accurate, in that the first theme is skipped -- the ascending syncopated scale, with runs following. Does anybody know a true piano solo version? (Not Liberace's, either.)

There is a very impressive recital on You Tube, from a German piano teacher. The comments indicate that his transcription has been published, but he says he doesn't strictly follow it. It's interesting that even a big Boesendorfer will go "boing" if you hit it hard enough.

The "press down but do not strike" C-flat ghost tone is apparently inaudible in performance. Every one I've heard strikes it.

I have the Geehl transcription and I also have a version with the original piano part* and with the orchestra part arranged by Percy Grainger for a second piano.

I will check tomorrow (it's getting late here) and compare the two scores and see if I can find what you say is "not accurate" - if indeed the two scores differ, essentially - in the Geehl transcription. I'll also check my score(s) against a recorded performance I have with piano and orchestra. I am presuming that it is a fairly accurate performance with Mischa Dichter as soloist and Neville Marriner conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra on Philips.

That said, there is at least one other piano solo transcription in print that can be found doing an Internet search. There may be more; as I said, it's getting late here, but tomorrow's another day.

*The solo piano part is "edited" by Grainger, but I am assuming that that refers simply to his occasional suggestions for pedaling, his redistribution of certain passages between the hands and some of his dynamic markings.

Regards,

Both of my scores for the “Warsaw Concerto” were published by chappell/intersong – Hal Leonard Corporation and the copyright on both is dated 1942, with an additional copyright date of 1946 on the solo / two-piano version edited by Grainger. Geehl’s transcription indicates that it was written in 1941 but the copyright date is 1942.

I have listened to three recordings of this work (soloists: Alain Lefevre, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Mischa Dichter with various orchestras and conductors) and I find that nothing is missing in either the full score or the Geehl transcription as far as content is concerned. Both scores are 241 measures long. There is no omission of the first theme in the score as recorded by these artists. The other difference to note is that my scores, as I have written, were published by chappell/intersong while the recording with Dichter writes that the score used is published by "Verlag - Editions Keith Prowse Music Publ. Co. Ltd." Even still, I see no differences between the two different sources.

The only differences one encounters in comparing the original piano part with the solo piano version are instances where the piano is doing figurative (arpeggio) accompaniment and the orchestra has the melody. In some of those cases Geehl transcribes the orchestra melody instead of the piano figures as being the more important of the two. That certainly makes sense to me.

Regards,

If you look at the first statement of the theme in Geehl's version, the rhythm is wrong. You have to ignore the double-dotted quarters and play quarter - quarter - eighth-quarter-eighth. Perhaps he was trying to evade copyright infringement. This also makes the tempo twice as fast as the double-dotted version (without sounding like a maniac pounding on the keyboard).

I suppose I could have a misprinted early version. If yours doesn't have the double-dotted quarters, I'll scan mine so we can compare them.

I don't know why you say that the rhythmic notation is wrong. I have checked other editions and they all amount to the same thing:

1) double dotted quarter followed by a sixteenth note (which equals 7 + 1= eight sixteenth-notes), or beats one and two of the four-beat measure.
2) quarter-note tied to dotted eighth-note plus sixteenth note which equals the same thing.
3) dotted quarter-note tied to sixteenth-note, followed by a sixteenth note = eight sixteenth-notes, or beats one and two
4) the full orchestral score in the library of the New York Philharmonic (hand notated by Andre Kostelanitz) is the same as my #1.

You state: You have to ignore the double-dotted quarters and play quarter - quarter - eighth-quarter-eighth.

No where have I seen that the first two beats are played as repeated quarter-note chords. In mathematical equivalencies the rhythmic pattern amounts to seven sixteenth-notes plus one sixteenth-note, twice, in each of the first three measures and again whenever this theme occurs.

Regards,

Both my chappell/interscore are the same as the first example here.







I couldn't copy the NY Philharmonic score; it was too small and when enlarged came out as a blur.

Regards,

That's what the Geehl version looks like, but not what I hear in the orchestral version. It could be that the sixteenths are meant as quick grace notes to the following chords, but your last example has them tied to the previous chords as upbeats. The tempo also makes each chord a quarter note, not a half -- the latter would require like 180 beats per minute.
I suppose the correct performance is in cut time, with the chords as one beat each and the sixteenths as grace notes.
You can understand how somebody sight reading the piano score would take it half as fast as it should be, in order to make the sixteenths distinct.