{ program notes
Piano Concerto No. 5 in C Major,“ Emperor”
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born in Bonn, Germany, December 16, 1770; died in Vienna, Austria, March 26, 1827
There is a certain irony in the subtitle“ Emperor” that was later given to Beethoven’ s Fifth and final Piano Concerto, but never used by the composer himself. By the spring of 1809 when Beethoven was creating his“ Emperor” Concerto, the last person he would have wanted to honor was the emperor of the day, Napoleon Bonaparte. Years earlier, he had angrily obliterated a dedication to the French leader he’ d once admired from the title page of his Third Symphony, the“ Eroica,” after he learned that Napoleon had just crowned himself Emperor.
Now in May 1809, Napoleon’ s armies were actually besieging the city of Vienna. Beethoven was forced to flee to his brother’ s house, where he holed up in the cellar with a pillow pressed to his still sensitive ears. But his work on his new Concerto did not cease.
And yet in many ways“ Emperor,” taken in a more generic sense, is an appropriate title for this concerto. It is a work of imperial size and scope and it reflects its war-riven era in its virile, martial tone. Its key— E-flat Major— was one of Beethoven’ s favorites and one he associated with heroic thoughts; it is also the key of the“ Eroica.” Sadly, although Beethoven had introduced all his other keyboard concertos to the public, his deafness was too far advanced for him to risk playing the 1810 premiere in Leipzig.
The length and complexity of the sonata-form first movement demonstrate Beethoven’ s new symphonic conception of the concerto. First we hear the pianist sweeping over the keyboard in grand, toccata-like arpeggios and scales, punctuated by loud chords from the orchestra. Then the soloist allows the orchestra to present its long exposition of themes. The first theme, with its distinctive turn ornament, is introduced immediately. The second, a quirky little march, appears first in halting minor-mode form in the strings, then is immediately smoothed out and shifted to the major by the horns. Over the course of the movement, Beethoven will transform both these themes in a wondrous range of keys, moods and figurations.
After its long absence, the piano begins its version of the exposition with an ascending chromatic scale ending with a long, high trill. Throughout, Beethoven uses this scale as a call to attention. Whenever we hear it, we are being given notice that a new section of the movement is beginning.
Just before that coda comes the usual moment for the soloist’ s big cadenza. But here Beethoven has quashed the soloist’ s customary right to improvise his own exhibition of virtuosity. Fearing the jarring improvisations other soloists might make, the composer wrote in Italian in the score:“ Don’ t play a cadenza, but attack the following immediately.” He then carefully wrote out a brief series of variants on both his themes.
A complete contrast to the extroverted first movement, movement two is a sublime, inward elegy in B Major, a remote key from the home tonality of E-flat. Two themes receive a quasi-variations treatment. The first and most important is the strings’ grave, almost religious theme heard at the opening. The second theme is the downward-cascading music with which the piano enters.
At the close of the movement, the pianist experiments hesitantly with a new melodic / rhythmic idea. Suddenly, the spark is struck, and the theme explodes into the exuberant rondo finale. Beethoven stresses the weak beats of his dancing meter, giving the theme an eccentric, hobbling gait. An important element is the crisp rhythm first heard in the horns; this martial, drum-like motive returns us to the wartime world of the Concerto’ s birth. Near the end, Beethoven gives this to the timpani, in eerie duet with the soloist, before the concerto’ s triumphant finish.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings.
Three Pieces in Old Style
Henryk Górecki
Born in Czernica, Silesia, Poland, December 6, 1933; died in Katowice, Poland, November 12, 2010
In 1992, Henryk Górecki, a respected, albeit little known Polish composer, suddenly became a worldwide phenomenon. Or more specifically, his Symphony No. 3,“ Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”( 1977) did. The piece was beautifully recorded on the Nonesuch label by the London Sinfonietta conducted by former BSO music director David Zinman. Setting texts relating to the Holocaust and featuring music of mesmerizing yet streamlined emotional power, this recording sold more than a million copies and live performances proliferated all over the world, including by the BSO.
A deeply committed Catholic and supporter of Poland’ s Solidarity Movement, Górecki belonged to a group of composers often called the“ mystical minimalists,” which included Arvo Pärt, John Tavener and Giya Kancheli. Using the repetitive melodies, clear tonalities and gradually evolving patterns also found in the music of Philip Glass and Steven Reich, Górecki and the others added a spiritual dimension, a sense of something more profound than ordinary human concerns.
Górecki began his career working in a very different style. Living nearly his entire life in the industrial city of Katowice in southwestern Poland, he was initially one of the most radical and challenging of the Polish composers behind the Iron Curtain. His music was often harsh and dissonant. Yet the work we’ ll hear at these concerts— Three Pieces in Old Style, written in 1963— was something quite different, pointing the way toward his future path.
Górecki recalled that someone had complained that he could not write tuneful music, and he wanted to prove him wrong. He also was growing more interested in Polish folk tradition and culture. Three Pieces bothered his avant-garde colleagues, who thought he was betraying them, but, as Górecki commented ironically,“ that was avant-garde when I started composing in this manner.”
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