Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor” [Maurizio Pollini]

Accompanied by the Wiener Philharmoniker (the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra), famous Italian classical pianist Maurizio Pollini plays Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto. Composed between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, it was the German composer’s last piano concerto. Conductor: Karl Böhm. This performance was recorded in 1977.

Accompanied by the Wiener Philharmoniker, Maurizio Pollini plays Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto. Conductor: Karl Böhm. This performance was recorded in 1977.

Live recording (in 4 parts)

Accompanied by the Wiener Philharmoniker, Maurizio Pollini plays Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto. Conductor: Karl Böhm. This performance was recorded in 1977. PART I
Accompanied by the Wiener Philharmoniker, Maurizio Pollini plays Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto. Conductor: Karl Böhm. This performance was recorded in 1977. PART II
Accompanied by the Wiener Philharmoniker, Maurizio Pollini plays Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto. Conductor: Karl Böhm. This performance was recorded in 1977. PART III
Accompanied by the Wiener Philharmoniker, Maurizio Pollini plays Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto. Conductor: Karl Böhm. This performance was recorded in 1977. PART IV

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 “Emperor”

The concerto was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven’s patron and pupil. The first performance took place on 28 November 1811 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig under conductor Johann Philipp Christian Schulz, the soloist being Friedrich Schneider. On 12 February 1812, Carl Czerny, another student of Beethoven’s, gave the Vienna debut of this work.

The work is scored for a solo piano, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in B-flat (clarinet I playing clarinet in A in movement 2; flute II, clarinet II, both trumpets, and timpani are tacet during this movement), two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani in E-flat and B-flat, and strings. It has three movements, and, as with Beethoven’s other concertos from this time period, this work has a relatively long first movement.

  1. Allegro in E-flat major. In Piano Concerto No. 4, Beethoven made a striking break with convention in commencing the work with a piano solo. In the opening Allegro of No. 5, he takes this idea to an extreme, providing the soloist with an extended cadenza, punctuated by tutti chords from the orchestra, that outlines in miniature the entire 20-minute movement. The main theme is marchlike and assertive; the somewhat more relaxed second theme first appears cloaked in mystery, in a minor-key version that soon gives way to the expected statement in the dominant major. The grandeur of the movement is colored by excursions to remote keys that, however, never fully thwart the powerful forward drive.
  2. Adagio un poco mosso in B major. The lyrical and idyllic second movement, Adagio un poco moto, is one of Beethoven’s most tender and intimate statements. The piano predominates here – not in a virtuoso context, but in a manner and texture that prefigure the nocturnes of Chopin. A long dominant pedal underpins a muted, even ethereal transition to the third movement: Rondo.
  3. Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo in E-flat major. In contrast to the noble magnificence of the opening Allegro, the Rondo is a movement of jubilant affirmation, evidenced at once by the upward-surging, dance-like main theme. Though the ambitious conception of the Concerto remains ever at the fore in the Rondo, Beethoven nevertheless does not shy away from providing the soloist with passages of exceptional brilliance.

As is true of many of the composer’s works with nicknames – e.g. the “Moonlight Sonata“, the “Spring Sonata” – the “Emperor” moniker attached to Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 (1809) is not the composer’s own. Still, there is hardly an adjective that could more aptly evoke the work’s impressive scale and majesty.

Despite its considerable technical demands, the “Emperor” Concerto handily transcends the typical role of the concerto as a mere virtuoso vehicle. Indeed, it is virtually symphonic in conception; its E flat major key (the same as that of the “Eroica” Symphony), expansive form, and sometimes martial, always grand, character grant the concerto a place among the defining works in the composer’s heroic vein. The first performance of the Concerto was likely given by Friedrich Schneider in Leipzig on November 28, 1811.

The Piano Concerto No. 5 is Beethoven’s final essay in the concerto genre. He may have lost interest in concertante works at least in part because of his advancing deafness, which brought an end to his own career as a pianist. Tellingly, he himself never publicly played his Piano Concerto No. 5, though he had written his four previous piano concerti for his own use on the concert stage. Moreover, the athletic, virtuoso ideal rarely fit the language of Beethoven’s late works, even though some of the last piano sonatas are punishingly difficult.

Sources

M. Özgür Nevres

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