Overture Magazine - 2018-19 Season FINAL_BSO_Overture_May_June | Page 26

ANDRÉ WATTS PERFORMS BEETHOVEN'S EMPEROR
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 5
IN E-FLAT MAJOR
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born in Bonn, Germany, December 16, 1770;
died in Vienna, Austria, March 26, 1827
There is a certain irony in the name
“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 crowned himself Emperor.
Now in May 1809, Napoleon’s armies
were actually besieging the city of
Vienna. Beethoven’s home was in the
line of fire of the French cannons, and
he 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—
particularly in its huge first movement
—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, Beethoven was
never able to display his own powers as
a pianist with this work. Although he
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. The opening is boldly
innovative. First, we hear the pianist
sweeping over the keyboard in grand
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 and 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 an elegant
call-to-attention: whenever we hear
it, we are being given notice that
a new section of the movement is
beginning. It will mark the opening of
the development section and later the
closing coda after the recapitulation.
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, the second
movement 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 and 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 and strings.
Notes by Janet E. Bedell, © 2019
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