Inaugural concert (2)

I refer to Maria Ghirlando's column in the Weekender on the inaugural concert at the Manoel Theatre.

Ms Ghirlando and I agree on the performance of the Beethoven Emperor Concerto, where she says, inter alia, "Stefan Cassar too preferred to keep to a conventional interpretation, which unfortunately suffered from being muffled and subdued in places, and insufficiently polished in others." Clearly, Ms Ghirlando is much kinder that I was in my letter! Further, she enjoyed the Schubert much more than I did, and I'm genuinely pleased that she discovered hidden treasures in this reading which obviously escaped my ears. Strange how we can sit on adjacent seats and hear such differing performances, but I'm delighted she found much to enjoy.

There is however, one point, which mystifies me.

For the Beethoven, Ms Ghirlando says, "After a brief pause the pianist embarked on the cadenza, which reflects the dramatic and poetic characteristics of the work." I'm intrigued enough to ask Ms Ghirlando where this cadenza exists, for as everyone knows, not only did Beethoven not write a cadenza for this work but furthermore (as I pointed out in my first letter), he explicitly instructs the soloist from inserting one at bar 497 in the first movement by writing, "Non si fa una cadenza, ma s'attacca subito il seguente" (loosely translated as, "Do not insert a cadenza here, but immediately carry on playing what follows"). Sometimes, the opening scales at the very start are loosely referred to as cadenzas, but from her article it is clear that this is emphatically not what Ms Ghirlando had in mind.

What was she then referring to?