London Symphony Orchestra

1 Allegro con brio
2 Largo
3 Rondo: Allegro

By the time his first two piano concertos were published in their final forms in 1801, Beethoven had long been at work on their successor, a piece which, he claimed, was at ‘a new and higher level’. Indeed, his intention had been to perform it at a benefit concert at the Burgtheater in April 1800, but in the event it was not ready and one of the earlier concertos was substituted. It was not until 5 April 1803 that the Third was finally premiered, at a concert in the Theater an der Wien which also included the first performances of his Second Symphony and the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives. Even then the piano part had not been written down: a fellow composer who turned pages for Beethoven found that they consisted of ‘almost nothing but empty leaves; at the most on one page or the other a few Egyptian hieroglyphs, wholly unintelligible to me, scribbled down to serve as clues for him’.

The concert was a moderate success. Critics had little to say about the new concerto other than that Beethoven’s playing was rather disappointing. Yet even those familiar with the work’s predecessors would surely have noticed that Beethoven’s pride in it was justified. This is a more sophisticated, original and weighty piece than the first two concertos, one that reflects the changes that were occurring in the composer’s style as he moved from early-period promise and brilliance to middle-period mastery and increasing individuality.

Beethoven’s musical personality is stamped all over the Third Piano Concerto, most unmistakably in its choice of key. Almost from the beginning of his career, Beethoven had turned to C minor to express some of his strongest sentiments, and by the time of this concerto he had already written several powerful works in that key, including the famous ‘Pathétique’ Piano Sonata. The inspiration for these Beethovenian emotional colourings was probably the prolific composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose C minor Fantasy and Sonata for solo piano and Piano Concerto No 24 provide clear anticipations of Beethoven’s C minor mood. Mozart’s concerto, a work Beethoven is known to have admired, also appears to have provided some formal pointers.

First Movement
That model is acknowledged in the opening bars of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, where, as in Mozart's concerto, a quiet theme is stated by the strings in unison. This is the start of what turns out to be an unusually long orchestral exposition, but after an assertive entry it is the soloist who delineates the movement’s formal scheme, as climactic trills and precipitous downward scales noisily signal the respective arrivals of the central development section (characterised by flowing piano octaves and a deliciously exotic G minor statement of the opening theme), the vital return to the opening theme in the home key, and the tumultuous preparation for the solo cadenza. Normally in a concerto of this date, the soloist would not play after the cadenza, leaving it to the orchestra to wrap up the first movement; Beethoven, taking his lead again from Mozart, brings it back to be the prompter of an atmospheric coda.

Second Movement
The second, slow movement contains what is perhaps the most dramatically effective moment in the whole concerto, and it comes in the very opening piano chord. Beethoven was always an adventurous explorer of key relationships, but to pitch this meditative Largo in E major, thereby instantly sending the music into a distant and rarefied realm, is a coup de théâtre which would touch anybody. The music itself has a summer-afternoon drowsiness and warmth, its loving nature epitomised by the central section’s piano arpeggios, caressingly accompanying a drawn-out dialogue between flute and bassoon.

Final Movement
The work ends with a Rondo, gleefully returning us to C minor, though not without a few diversions, including an episode resembling a Mozart wind serenade, a short fugue, and another neck-tingling key-shift typical of Beethoven, as the main theme briefly re-acquaints us with the world of E major. Finally, with the end in sight and the listener thinking there can be no more surprises, a grand piano flourish heralds a switch to C major, and a cheeky altered-rhythm version of the theme to finish.

^{Note by Lindsay Kemp}

Click 'Beethoven in Profile' in the navigation menu to see the composer profile.

1 Allegro con brio
2 Largo
3 Rondo: Allegro scherzando

When Beethoven arrived in Vienna in 1792, just a few weeks before his 22nd birthday, it was to study with the world’s most famous composer, Joseph Haydn, and to absorb some of the atmosphere of what was arguably the musical capital of the world. He first made his name as a virtuoso pianist, performing in the private houses of the aristocracy, mostly in the form of improvisations so daring that one fellow pianist conceded that he was ‘no man, he’s a devil; he’ll play me and all of us to death’. There are accounts of him moving listeners to tears one moment, and the next berating them for not being sufficiently attentive.

When it came to formal composition, Beethoven was more circumspect. During the early 1790s he published few works, and those reluctantly. In 1794 a letter to the publisher Simrock revealed why: ‘I had no desire to publish any variations at present, for I wanted to wait until some more important works of mine, which are due to appear very soon, had been given to the world.’ In other words, he was deliberately holding back in order to make a splash with a batch of striking new compositions. This he duly did in 1795–96 with his Op 1 Piano Trios, Op 2 Piano Sonatas and Op 3 String Trio.

On 29 March 1795 Beethoven appeared for the first time in public in a work of his own, a piano concerto performed at the Burgtheater which was received with unanimous applause. We do not know which concerto this was – it could have been the one now known as No 2, which had actually been written some time before – but since it was advertised as ‘entirely new’ and Beethoven himself described No 2 as ‘not among my best compositions’, No 1 looks more likely to have been part of the grander strategy.

Despite his studies with Haydn, it is to Mozart that Beethoven owes the greatest debt in this piano concerto, and Mozart had provided the genre with its formal and expressive model during the 1780s. Yet while the First Piano Concerto has often been likened to Mozart in the context of Beethoven’s other works, there are plenty of ways it shows its author’s hand. This is a piece with the brightness and confidence of youth, one which takes as its starting point the congenially militaristic trumpet-and-drum world of Mozart’s concertos in the same key, and with brash dynamism and exuberantly robust piano writing admits the air of a new and more assertive age.

First Movement
The first movement begins quietly but soon gets into a vigorous stride, so that by the time the piano enters the best way for it to make an impression is by momentarily occupying itself with a totally new theme. A formal nicety occurs in the opening orchestral section, when the strings’ lovingly shaped second theme is three times curtailed, allowing the woodwind to cloud the music and lead it away to a new key. This is typical Beethoven, surprising or even shocking his audiences, but how much more pleasing the effect then becomes when this same theme later reappears in the woodwind, this time in its full, untroubled form.

Second and Final Movements
The central Largo is broadly expressive with warmth and a sense of well-being that comes as much from its harmonies and resourcefully varied textures (there is a telling role for solo clarinet) as from its melodic distinction. The concerto ends with a sparkling, spirited Rondo.

^{Note by Lindsay Kemp}

1 Allegro con brio
2 Adagio
3 Rondo: Molto allegro

The orchestra for Piano Concerto No 2 is smaller than in Beethoven’s other concertos. There are no clarinets, trumpets or drums here, but Beethoven quickly shows that he can create a cheerily martial atmosphere without them.

First Movement
The fanfare figures of the opening bars pop up throughout the first movement, providing much of its flavour as well as a driving developmental force. As does the winding violin phrase which answers the fanfare’s first statement – this is the movement’s second important theme, split between the violins and arriving after an unexpected key-shift to D-flat major. Beethoven must have liked the effect of that key-shift: a short while after the piano has come in he makes another jump into D-flat when a veiled new theme for the piano emerges at the end of a long trill; and during the central development section he repeats the initial side-step with the same music, but in different keys.

Second Movement
The Adagio is broad and serene, and like many of Beethoven’s early slow movements is encrusted with elaborate piano figuration. There is a broodingly emotional quality to it too, however, and the climax of the movement comes in a brief, drooping recitative-like passage for the soloist, marked to be played ‘con gran espressione’ (with great expression).

Final Movement
The finale, as in all of Beethoven’s concertos, is a Rondo, here with four statements of the main theme separated by contrasting episodes. The movement’s character is established by the playful rhythmic catch of the main theme (notice how this appears slightly changed towards the end), and there are some knowing hints at the fashionable, percussive ‘Turkish’ style along the way. Mozart may have been his model, but the spirit here is pure young Beethoven.

^{Note by Lindsay Kemp}

1 Allegro moderato
2 Andante con moto
3 Rondo: Vivace

The Fourth Piano Concerto was composed during a particularly rich phase in Beethoven’s life. Begun in 1804, it was completed two years later and thus dates from the same time as the Fifth Symphony, the Violin Concerto, and the original version of the opera Fidelio. It was premiered, with the composer as soloist, in a concert which also included the first performances of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, parts of the Mass in C major, and the Choral Fantasy.

Beethoven often worked on more than one composition at a time, so it is interesting to see the first movements of both the Fourth Piano Concerto and the Fifth Symphony dominated by the same four-note rhythm (short–short–short–long). However no one would claim that the two works are similar in personality; the broad lyrical cast of the piano concerto is in marked contrast to the Symphony’s terse, almost violent concentration. This relaxed demeanour was a new facet of Beethoven’s style, signifying his so-called ‘middle period’, and in its way it is no less typical or radical than his more familiar stormy side. The Fourth Piano Concerto, a work of surpassing beauty and poetry, is one of its most sublime examples.

First Movement
Without doubt the boldest stroke in the whole concerto is also one of the utmost gentleness. Normally at this time, a concerto would begin with a long passage for the orchestra, who would introduce the movement’s main themes before the soloist joins in later. Beethoven followed this etiquette in his first three piano concertos, but in the Fourth it is the piano which begins the piece on its own, with a touchingly quiet and simple chordal theme. For any audience expecting a grand extrovert opening, it is a heart stopping moment, though the orchestra subsequently takes over and presents the remaining themes in the normal way. Several new themes are heard, but that first piano theme (and its rhythm) continue to haunt the music. At those places where the music seems to become agitated, the tension is soon diffused; not even the loud, climactic return of the main theme, in massive chords batted between the pianist’s hands, can maintain its bombast for long.

Second Movement
The second movement is another departure from convention, discarding the usual formal models in favour of a dramatic interlude of operatic directness and power. There is a kind of confrontation occurring here between the stern unison denouncements of the orchestral strings and the sweetly harmonised responses of the piano, gradually winning the orchestra over until it falls into line with an acquiescent pizzicato (plucked strings) chord. Having won the argument, the piano draws itself to full height in a brief but disquieting show of strength before the movement comes to a close.

Final Movement
Beethoven now makes another radical gesture, moving stealthily and smoothly into the finale without a break. As in all his concertos, it is a Rondo, its returning theme being a tidy, fanfare-like tune which prompts the introduction for the first time in this concerto of trumpets and drums. After the high concentration of the slow movement, the mood here is expansive again. The piano’s suavely soaring second theme is subjected to elaborate contrapuntal treatment from the orchestra. The main theme appears in a ravishing smoothed-over version for the violas, and there is space for a spot of cat-and-mouse between the cadenza and the accelerated, headlong finish.

^{Note by Lindsay Kemp}

1 Allegro
2 Adagio un poco mosso
3 Rondo: Allegro

One has to wonder whether the organisers of the concert at which Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto received its Viennese premiere in February 1812 – the actual premiere having taken place in Leipzig the previous November – provided the ideal audience. A contemporary report of the combined concert and art exhibition mounted by the Society of Noble Ladies for Charity tells us that ‘the pictures offer a glorious treat; a new pianoforte concerto by Beethoven failed’. And it is true that, while it was later to become as familiar a piano concerto as any, in its early years the ‘Emperor’ struggled for popularity. Perhaps its leonine strength and symphonic sweep were simply too much for everyone, not just the Noble Ladies.

Cast in the same key as Beethoven's ‘heroic’ Symphony No 3, it breathes much the same majestically confident air, though in a manner one could describe as more macho. Composed in the first few months of 1809, with war brewing between Austria and France, this is Beethoven in what must have seemed an overbearingly optimistic mood.

First Movement
The concerto is certainly not reticent about declaring itself. The first movement opens with extravagant flourishes from the piano punctuated with stoic orchestral chords, leading us with an unerring sense of direction towards the sturdy first theme. This march-like tune presents two important thematic reference-points in the shape of a melodic turn and a tiny figure of just two notes (a long and a short), which Beethoven refers to constantly in the course of the movement. The latter ushers in the chromatic scale with which the piano re-enters, and the same sequence of events later serves to introduce the development section.

Here the turn dominates, dreamily passed around the woodwind, but the two-note figure emerges ever more strongly, eventually firing off a stormy tirade of piano octaves. The air quickly clears, however, and reappearances of the turn lead back to a recapitulation of the opening material. Towards the end of the movement Beethoven makes his most radical formal move. In the early 19th century it was still customary at this point in a concerto for the soloist to improvise a solo passage (or cadenza). Beethoven did this in his first four concertos, but in the Fifth, for the first time, he includes one that is not only fully written out, but involves the orchestra as well. It was a trend that many subsequent composers, glad of the extra control, would follow.

Second and Final Movements
The second and third movements together take less time to play than the first. The Adagio, in the key of B major, opens with a serene, hymn-like tune from the strings, which the piano answers with a theme of its own before taking up the opening one in ornamented form. This in turn leads to an orchestral reprise of the same theme, now with greater participation from the winds and with piano decoration. At the end the music dissolves, then eerily drops down a semitone as the piano toys idly with some quiet, thickly scored chords. In a flash, these are then transformed and revealed to be the main theme of the bouncy Rondo finale, which follows without a break. Physical joins between movements were a trend in Beethoven’s music at this time, but so too were thematic ones.

At one point in this finale, with the main theme firmly established, the strings gently put forward the ‘experimental’ version from the end of the slow movement, as if mocking the piano’s earlier tentativeness. The movement approaches its close, however, with piano and timpani in stealthy cahoots before, with a final flurry, the end is upon us.

The 'Emperor'
The concerto’s nickname was not chosen by Beethoven, and, given the composer’s angry reaction to Napoleon’s self-appointment as Emperor in 1804, it may seem more than usually inappropriate. Yet there is an appositeness to it if we take the music’s grandly heroic stance as a picture of what, perhaps, an emperor ought to be. Beethoven once remarked that if he had understood the arts of war as well as he had those of music, he could have defeated Napoleon. Who, listening to this concerto, could doubt that?

^{Note by Lindsay Kemp}

Ludwig van Beethoven
^{1770 (Germany) – 1827 (Austria)}

Beethoven showed early musical promise, yet reacted against his father's attempts to train him as a child prodigy. The boy pianist attracted the support of the Prince-Archbishop, who supported his studies with leading musicians at the Bonn court. By the early 1780s, Beethoven had completed his first compositions, all of which were for keyboard. With the decline of his alcoholic father, Ludwig became the family breadwinner as a musician at court. Encouraged by his employer, the Prince-Archbishop Maximilian Franz, Beethoven travelled to Vienna to study with Joseph Haydn. The younger composer fell out with his renowned mentor when the latter discovered he was secretly taking lessons from several other teachers. Although Maximilian Franz withdrew payments for Beethoven's Viennese education, the talented musician had already attracted support from some of the city's wealthiest arts patrons.

His public performances in 1795 were well received, and he shrewdly negotiated a contract with Artaria & Co, the largest music publisher in Vienna. He was soon able to devote his time to composition or the performance of his own works. In 1800 Beethoven began to complain bitterly of deafness, but despite suffering the distress and pain of tinnitus, chronic stomach ailments, liver problems and an embittered legal case for the guardianship of his nephew, Beethoven created a series of remarkable new works, including the Missa solemnis and his late symphonies and piano sonatas. It is thought that around 10,000 people followed his funeral procession on 29 March 1827. Certainly, his posthumous reputation developed to influence successive generations of composers and other artists inspired by the heroic aspects of Beethoven's character and the profound humanity of his music.

^{Composer profile by Andrew Stewart}

Listen to Beethoven on LSO Live

Including the complete symphonies with Bernard Haitink, Fidelio and the Mass in C with Sir Colin Davis, and the recently released Christ on the Mount of Olives with Sir Simon Rattle.

Share Your Thoughts

We hope you’ve enjoyed the concert. If you have five minutes we would really appreciate your feedback via our survey.

Or if you only have a few seconds, you can give us a rating and send us a message below.

Programme Contributor

Lindsay Kemp is Founder and Artistic Director of the Baroque at the Edge Festival, an Artistic Adviser to the York Early Music Festival and a regular contributor to Gramophone magazine. For 30 years he was a Producer for BBC Radio 3, including programming lunchtime concerts at Wigmore Hall and LSO St Luke’s.