BEETHOVEN AND THE CONCERTO

A Genre Grows Up

CATALOG
Piano Concertos WoO 4: No. 0 in E-at Major 1784 Opus 19: No. 2 in B-at Major 1787-89; 1795 Opus 15: No. 1 in C Major 1796-97 Opus 37: No. 3 in C Minor 1800-01 Opus 61a: Arrangement of Violin Concerto 1806 Opus 78: No. 5 in E-at Major 1809-10

CATALOG

Op. 56: Triple Concerto (Violin, Cello, Piano) 1805 Op. 61: Violin Concerto in D Major 1806

PIANO CONCERTO IN E-FLAT MAJOR (1784)

Martin Galling / Carl-August Bnte / Berlin Symphony

ABOUT THE CONCERTO

Beethoven wrote it at the age of 13. Its a Galant work, not sophisticated, but pleasant enough. Only the piano part has survived, so any performance will feature its own orchestration. Its a kids piece, written precisely to spec. Well hear the rst part of the Rondo nale.

Part I

Part II

Part III = Part I

Reprise

Ant

Cons

Ant

Cons

Transition Excursion
Secondary Closing

Transition
Part I Part II Part III = Part I

Reprise

Ant

Cons

Ant

Cons

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-at was written before Piano Concerto No. 1. 17879, with revisions in 1795. The nale demonstrates spectacular advances over his earlier efforts.

THE RONDO
Blends Rondo with Sonata Form, a fairly recent development during the 1780s and a difcult structure to manage. The piano writing is brilliant and effective. The orchestra is Mozartean throughout, but the languageespecially the shifting chromatic moodsis distinctly Beethoven.

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2, OP. 19: III

Paul Lewis / Jiri Belohlavek / BBC Symphony

Exposition Reprise
B-flat Major

Trans

Excursion 1
F Major

Trans

Reprise
B-flat Major

Trans

Development (Excursion 2) 1
G Minor

2
C Minor

3
B-flat Minor

Trans

Recapitulation Reprise
B-flat Major

Trans

Excursion 1
B-flat Major

Trans

Reprise
B-flat Major

Coda

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1

Actually written later than Piano Concerto No. 2. Beethoven chose to have it published rst, since its a deeply impressive piece. In a way, it was Beethovens calling card to the Viennese public, announcing his presence in unmistakable terms.

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1

Appears to have been premiered on December 18, 1795 as part of a concert of three of Haydns London symphonies. Haydn had just returned from London.

ABOUT THE CONCERTO

The longest concerto written to date. The rst movement is between 17 and 18 minutes long (depending on the performance). Traverses emotional territory usually associated with symphonies, not concertos.

C MAJOR

Long associated with festive, ceremonial occasions. Examples include:

Haydn: Symphony No. 48 Maria Theresia

Mozart: Symphony No. 41 Jupiter

Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major

FIRST MOVEMENT

Classical-era double-exposition sonata form. But the Development is a very special passage that points clearly to Beethovens mature style.

A typical cycle-of-fths diagram

C# Major F# Major B Major E Major A Major D Major G Major C Major F Major Bb Major Eb Major Ab Major Db Major Gb Major Cb Major

Exposition: C Major to G Development: G to Major E-at Major to Major F GMinor Minor Major then C Major
C# Major F# Major B Major E Major A Major D Major G Major C Major F Major Bb Major Eb Major Ab Major Db Major Gb Major Cb Major F Minor G Minor

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1: I

Richard Goode / Ivn Fischer / Budapest Festival Orchestra

FINALE
Beethoven gives the concerto a grand send-off with a jovial, rhythmic nale, in Rondo form. The second excursion reminded commentator Michael Steinberg of 1940s lm star Carmen Miranda and her song Tico, Tico. Well hear the middle of the movement: Reprise 2 Excursion 2 Reprise 3

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1: III

Richard Goode / Ivn Fischer / Budapest Festival Orchestra

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 3

Begun in 1796; main work took place in 1800. Premiere on April 5, 1803. Also premiered on that concert: Symphony No. 2 in D Major Christ on the Mount of Olives The young conductor Ignaz von Seyfried turned pages for Beethoven during the concerto...

I saw almost nothing but empty leaves; at the most, on one page or another a few Egyptian hieroglyphs wholly unintelligible to me were scribbled down to serve as clues for him; for he played nearly all the solo part from memory since, as was so often the case, he had not had time to set it all down on paper. He gave me a secret glance whenever he was at the end of one of the invisible passages, and my scarcely concealable anxiety not to miss the decisive moment amused him greatly and he laughed heartily at the jovial supper which we ate afterwards.

THE CONCERTO
More compact, less showy than the C Major concerto. Angular, with a tendency to be sparse in its form and in the style of the piano writing. Follows the Classical double-exposition form. Well hear the Second Expositionwith the pianos entrance.

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 3: I

Leon Fleisher / George Szell / Cleveland Orchestra

Primary

Transition

Secondary

Transition

Closing

Development

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 4

Written 1805-06; premiered privately March 1807. First public performance December 22, 1808on a program that included the premieres of: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor Symphony No. 6 (Pastoral) Choral Fantasy

CULTURAL SHIFT
Audiences were accustomed to waiting for the soloist to enter, given the long rst exposition of doubleexposition sonata form. It made sense when the conductor and soloist were one and the same person. But early on composers challenged that status quo.

Mozart: Piano Concerto in E-at Major, K. 271

So imagine the audiences surprise when the concerto began like this:

SECOND MOVEMENT
Perhaps the biggest surprise comes with the slow movement. Orchestra: demanding, erceall in octaves, no harmonies. Piano: soft, beguiling, harmonized throughout. The two alternate back and forth, sometimes at length, and sometimes the conversation grows a bit more insistent.

Discussions about this movements being about Orpheus taming the wild beasts with his lute go as far back as 1859 and have continued to this day.

Its too late to ask Beethoven himself...

PIANO CONCERTO NO. 4: II

Emanuel Ax / Michael Tilson Thomas / San Francisco Symphony

Orchestra

Piano

Cadenza

VIOLIN CONCERTO, OP. 61

Written in 1806; premiered December 23 of that year. Written for violinist Franz Clement.

FRANZ CLEMENT
Poorly treated by posterity. Superb musician and violinistworked with Haydn in London. Was concertmaster for the legendary 1808 performance of Haydns The Creation in Vienna.

FRANZ CLEMENT
Apparently Beethoven gave Clement all of 2 days to learn the Violin Concerto. The story that Clement inserted a gimmicky piece between 1st and 2nd movements, with the violin held upside down, is incorrect. He did play such a piece, but at the end of the program, not during Beethovens concertohe was far too good a musician to pull a stunt like that.

Beethovens Violin Concerto is gigantic, one of the most spacious concertos ever written, but so quiet that when it was a novelty most people complained quite as much of its insignicance as of its length. All its most famous strokes of genius are not only mysteriously quiet, but mysterious in radiantly happy surroundings.

Donald Francis Tovey

...the function of the violin in Beethovens Concerto is to be decorative, fanciful, capricious, more often a commentator on than an initiator of ideas. Beethoven wrote to [Clements] strength, and this is music, therefore, for a violinist with a light hand, one of an indescribably delicacy, neatness, and elegance, an extremely delightful tenderness and purity. Michael Steinberg

VIOLIN CONCERTO IN D MAJOR, OP. 61: I

FIRST AND SECOND EXPOSITION

Nathan Milstein / William Steinberg / Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra

The mystery at the opening...

Followed by the quietly unsettling use of non-chord tones...

And the ights of lyricism...

First Exposition
Primary Disturb Primary Transition Secondary Secondary Transition Closing

OTHER CONCERTOS

Piano Concerto No. 5 Emperor in 1809 Beethovens last concerto. The Triple Concerto of 1804. The piano arrangement of the Violin Concerto.