Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)

Piano Concerto in E-flat major
No. 5 (Emperor)
by Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven in 1815; portrait by Joseph Willibrord Mähler
Catalogue	Op. 73
Composed	1809 (1809)
Dedication	Archduke Rudolph
Performed	28 November 1811 (1811-11-28): Gewandhaus, Leipzig
Movements	3 (Allegro Adagio Rondo: Allegro)
Scoring	Piano orchestra

The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E♭ major, Op. 73, known as the Emperor Concerto in English-speaking countries,^[1] is a concerto composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, his last completed piano concerto. Beethoven composed the concerto in 1809 under pension in Vienna, and he dedicated it to Archduke Rudolf,^[2] Beethoven's patron, friend, and pupil.^[1] The first performance took place on 28 November 1811 in Leipzig, with Friedrich Schneider as the soloist and Johann Philipp Christian Schulz conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra.^[1] It debuted in Vienna on 12 February 1812, with Carl Czerny as the soloist.^[3][4]

The origin of the epithet Emperor is uncertain; it may have been coined by Johann Baptist Cramer, the English publisher of the concerto, despite the concerto having no association with any emperor.^[5][6] Even though its epithet is ambiguous, musicologists are certain the concerto is in the heroic style due to its military characterists and heroic symbolism.^[6] According to Donald Tovey, Beethoven would have disliked the epithet; the feeling may be due to Beethoven's dislike of Napoleon's conquest.^[1][7] Its duration is approximately forty minutes.

Background[]

In the autumn of 1808, after having been rejected for a position at the Royal Theatre, Beethoven had received an offer from Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte, then king of Westphalia, for a well-paid position as Kapellmeister at the court in Cassel. To persuade him to stay in Vienna, Archduke Rudolf, Prince Kinsky and Prince Lobkowitz, after receiving representations from Beethoven's friends, pledged to pay him a pension of 4000 florins a year.^[8] Archduke Rudolf paid his share of the pension on the agreed date.^[9] Kinsky, immediately called to military duty, did not contribute and died in November 1812 after falling from his horse.^[10][11] When the Austrian currency destabilized in 1811, Lobkowitz went bankrupt. To benefit from the agreement, Beethoven eventually had to obtain recourse from the law, which in 1815 brought him some recompense.^[12]

Beethoven felt the Napoleonic Wars reaching Vienna in early 1809. Beethoven completed writing the piano concerto in April while Vienna was under siege by Napoleon's armies.^[10][2] Beethoven wrote to his publisher in July 1809 that there was “nothing but drums, cannons, men, misery of all sorts" around him.^[2][1] He had to flee to his brother's cellar and cover his ears with pillows in order to save his declining hearing because of the siege.^[13] This war-ridden era is reflected in the piece's size, scope, and martial tone.^[14] Beethoven often composed in E-flat for noble music, and audiences in his time would be able to recognize this key's significance.^[2] The piece is in Beethoven's heroic style, and he experiments with new techniques, such as beginning with an earlier than normal piano entrance and with a cadenza.^[15]

Music[]

Overview[]

	1. Allegro Menu 0:00 2. Adagio un poco mosso Menu 0:00 3. Rondo: Allegro Menu 0:00 Ursula Oppens, piano; DuPage Symphony Orchestra; from Musopen
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The concerto is divided into the following three movements:

The concerto is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in B♭ (clarinet I playing in A in movement 2), two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani in E♭ and B♭, and strings. In the second movement, 2nd flute, 2nd clarinet, trumpets, and timpani are tacet.^[16]

I. Allegro[]

The concerto opens with the orchestra offering three emphatic chords. The solo piano responds to each chord with florishes of arpeggios, trills, and scales.^[4] This opening is new in classical concertos because the flourishes almost become thematic.^[15] The vigorous, incessantly propulsive first theme follows, and the expository material is repeated with variations, virtuoso figurations, and modified harmonies. The second theme, a march, appears first in B minor form in the strings, then thematically shifts to C-flat major by the horns.^[17][2] Over the course of the movement, Beethoven will transform both these themes in a range of keys, moods, and figurations, innovating and experimenting.^[17]

Following the opening, the movement follows Beethoven's three-theme sonata structure for a concerto. The orchestral exposition is a two-theme sonata exposition, but the second exposition with the piano introduces a triumphant, virtuosic third theme that belongs solely to the solo instrument, a trademark of Beethoven's concertos. The coda elaborates upon the open-ended first theme, building in intensity before finishing in a final climactic arrival at the tonic E♭ major.

II. Adagio un poco mosso[]

The second movement in B major forms a quiet nocturne for the solo piano, muted strings, and wind instruments that converse with the solo piano. The movement briefly changes to D major, a very remote key from the concerto's E♭ major. The third movement begins without interruption when a lone bassoon note B drops a semitone to B♭, the dominant of the tonic key E♭. The end of the second movement was written to build directly into the third.

III. Rondo: Allegro[]

The final movement of the concerto is a seven-part rondo form (ABACABA). The solo piano introduces the main theme before the full orchestra affirms the soloist's statement. The rondo's B-section begins with piano scales, before the orchestra again responds. The C-section is much longer, presenting the theme from the A-section in three different keys before the piano performs a passage of arpeggios. Rather than finishing with a strong entrance from the orchestra, however, the trill ending the cadenza dies away until the introductory theme reappears, played first by the piano and then the orchestra. In the last section, the theme undergoes variation before the concerto ends with a short cadenza and robust orchestral response.

Critical reception[]

The musicologist Alfred Einstein has described the concerto as "the apotheosis of the military concept" in Beethoven's music.^[18]

Notable recordings[]

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• During the acoustic era, in September 1912, pianist Frank La Forge recorded the adagio movement with a studio orchestra for the Victor Talking Machine Company; the recording was issued as Victor 55030-A.^[19]
• Frederic Lamond made the first complete recording of the Emperor Concerto in 1922, with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra under Eugene Goossens.^[20]
• In January 1927 Wilhelm Backhaus recorded the Emperor Concerto with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra under Landon Ronald. Backhaus would make stereo recordings of all five concertos with Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt and Vienna Philharmonic in the late 1950s.
• In March 1927 Ignaz Friedman recorded the Emperor Concerto with the New Queen's Hall Orchestra under Henry Wood, but this recording no longer exists.
• In the early 1930s Artur Schnabel recorded all five Beethoven concertos under Sir Malcolm Sargent and the London Symphony Orchestra.
• Edwin Fischer recorded it with Karl Böhm in 1939 and Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1951.
• Josef Hofmann recorded it with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hans Lange on 12 May 1940.
• Artur Rubinstein recorded it three times for RCA Victor, with Josef Krips, Erich Leinsdorf, and Daniel Barenboim.
• Walter Gieseking and Artur Rother made a stereophonic tape recording in 1944 or 1945 for German radio. It was one of the very earliest high-fidelity magnetic tape recordings, as well as one of the earliest stereo recordings, and was one of about 300 such recordings made during the war. However, only three are known to survive. During the quiet passages, anti-aircraft weapons can be heard firing.
• Vladimir Horowitz recorded it in a 1952 live performance at Carnegie Hall with Fritz Reiner and the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra.^[21]
• Wilhelm Kempff recorded it with Paul van Kempen in 1953 and with Ferdinand Leitner in 1961.
• Rudolf Serkin recorded it four times: in 1941 with Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic; in 1953 with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra; in 1962 with Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic, and in 1981 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa.
• Bernstein recorded a live performance of the concerto in September 1989, shortly before his death, with Krystian Zimerman and the Vienna Philharmonic. The performance was filmed and released on DVD.
• Leon Fleisher recorded all the Beethoven piano concertos with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra from 1959 until 1961.
• Daniel Barenboim recorded all five piano concertos and the Choral Fantasia with Otto Klemperer and the New Philharmonia Orchestra in 1968. In 2012 he again recorded all five concertos with himself as both the soloist and the conductor.
• Vladimir Ashkenazy recorded all the Beethoven piano concertos three times: in 1971–1972 with Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, in 1983 with Zubin Mehta and the Vienna Philharmonic, and in 1986–1987 with himself conducting the Cleveland Orchestra.
• Claudio Arrau recorded it four times: with Alceo Galliera in 1958, Bernard Haitink in 1964 and twice with Sir Colin Davis, first with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and later with the Staatskapelle Dresden.
• Glenn Gould recorded this concerto with Leopold Stokowski (the only recording the two ever made together) using somewhat non-traditional phrasings and tempi, as was typical of Gould's interpretations. Gould also recorded it with Karel Ančerl.
• Maurizio Pollini recorded the five piano concertos twice for Deutsche Grammophon. First with Karl Böhm and Eugen Jochum (in the first two concertos) and the Vienna Philharmonic and later with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic.
• Alfred Brendel recorded all Beethoven's piano concertos at least three times over his career.
• Friedrich Gulda recorded all Beethoven's piano concertos with Horst Stein and the Vienna Philharmonic between 1971 and 1973.
• Paul Lewis recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra with conductor Jiří Bělohlávek.
• Alicia de Larrocha recorded it twice, first in 1978 with Zubin Mehta and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and then recorded all Beethoven's piano concertos with Riccardo Chailly and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1983-84)
• Murray Perahia recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with conductor Bernard Haitink, 1988.
• Richard Goode recorded the five Beethoven concertos with the Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by Iván Fischer in 2005.^[22][23]
• Hélène Grimaud recorded a live performance in December, 2006 with Wladimir Jurowski and the Staatskapelle Dresden.
• In 2012, the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos in the album "the Beethoven Journey", with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra^[24]

References[]

Notes[]

Citations[]

Sources[]

• Steinberg, Michael (1998). The Concerto: A Listener's Guide. Oxford University Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-0-19-510330-4. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
• Thayer, Alexander Wheelock (1967a). Forbes, Elliot (ed.). Thayer's Life of Beethoven. 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-02717-3.
• Cooper, Barry (2008). Beethoven. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-531331-4.
• Cooper, Barry, ed. (1996). The Beethoven Companion (revised ed.). London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0-50-027871-0.
• Solomon, Maynard (November 1998). Beethoven (2nd revised ed.). New York: Schirmer Trade Books. ISBN 978-0-8256-7268-2.
• Einstein, Alfred (1958). Essays on Music. London: Faber and Faber. OCLC 713913183.
• Shen, Yan (May 2015). "NARRATIVE ANALYSIS OF BEETHOVEN'S PIANO CONCERTO NO.5" (PDF). uh-ir.tdl.org. Retrieved 19 August 2021.

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven).

• Piano Concerto No. 5: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Gutmann, Peter (2017). "Beethoven: Piano Concerto # 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 ('Emperor')". Classical Notes.
• Original autograph, 1809, Berlin State Library
• Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto Analysis and description of Beethoven's Fifth Emperor Piano Concerto
• BBC Discovering Music – analysis (RealAudio, 29 minutes)