Concerto no. 5 in E-flat major for piano and orchestra, op. 73 ("Emperor") LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Beethoven himself was the soloist in the premieres of his first four piano concertos. In fact, his initial success in Vienna came as a virtuoso pianist playing his own works. However, when he composed his Fifth Piano Concerto, Beethoven was too deaf to appear as the soloist. This might also be the reason he did not compose any more piano concertos. The Fifth Piano Concerto was completed in 1809, the same year in which the Austrian army was defeated in Wagram and in which Napoleon besieged Vienna and conquered the city. It is told that when the shelling of the city was very heavy, Beethoven used to find shelter in the cellar of his brother Carl's house, where he would cover his ears with pillows, not from fear, but rather in order to protect the very little hearing he had left. The concerto waited two years for its premiere, probably on 28 November 1811 in Leipzig. The soloist was one Friedrich Schneider and the conductor was Johann Philipp Christian Schulz. According to a report from the time "it put the audience into such a state of enthusiasm that it could hardly content itself with ordinary expressions of recognition and enjoyment." The first Vienna performance in February 1812, in which Beethoven's pupil Carl Czerny played the solo part, was a failure. The origins of the sobriquet "Emperor" are not clear. One of the stories suggests that a French officer, who was stunned by the music, dubbed the piece as "the Emperor of all concertos." Sir Donald Tovey, the renowned British musicologist, wrote that "from the history of the Eroica we know how Beethoven would have appreciated the vulgar title by which this concerto is known in the British Isles. So we will say no more about it, but attend to the music." The first movement opens with a festive and assertive chord played by the entire orchestra, with the solo pianist bursting into it in an improvisation-like passage sounding like a sweeping cadenza (which usually comes at the end of the movement and not at its opening). The orchestra plays a similar chord two more times and the piano continues with its rhapsodic outbursts after each time. Only after this impulsive process is the orchestra allowed to present the first theme of the movement. From this main theme many subsidiary ones ca. 38 mins. Allegro Adagio un poco mosso Rondo: Allegro, ma non troppo
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