VAN BEETHOVEN'S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 5: THE EMPEROR

Angela

Suffering the flu is a process of seven days, more or less. During these days, you must stay at home, avoid being in contact with other people and relax as time as you could. It's not easy if you are a very active person like The Grandma. She is a bit desperate after three days of relax and she is starting to lose her nerves.

The Grandma has a lot of friends, and they are a great help when you are under her situation. Today, Angela, one of her best German friends, has visited her. She has travelled from Hamburg to Barcelona to spend some days with her and help her. Angela has a busy agenda and The Grandma appreciates a lot her visit. Her German friend is a fan of one of the best musicians of the history, Ludwig Van Beethoven, and The Grandma has wanted to offer her a welcoming concert to celebrate her arrival. The Grandma has chosen a special concerto, No 5, also known as the Emperor Concerto, the Angela's favourite one.

Before Angela's arrival, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 26).

More information: Passive 1

The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E♭ major, Op. 73, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last completed piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven's patron and pupil.

The first performance took place on 13 January 1811 at the Palace of Prince Joseph Lobkowitz in Vienna, with Archduke Rudolf as the soloist, followed by a public concert 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.

Ludwig van Beethoven

The epithet of Emperor for this concerto was not Beethoven's own but was coined by Johann Baptist Cramer, the English publisher of the concerto. Its duration is approximately forty minutes.

The concerto is scored for solo piano, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in B♭ (clarinet I playing in A in movement 2), two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani in E♭ and B♭, and strings. In the second movement, 2nd flute, 2nd clarinet, trumpets, and timpani are tacet.

The concerto is divided into three movements: Allegro in E♭ major, Adagio un poco mosso in B major and Rondo: Allegro in E♭ major.

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The first movement begins with the solo piano unfurling a series of virtuosic pronouncements punctuated by mammoth chords from the full orchestra. The vigorous, incessantly propulsive main theme follows, undergoing complex thematic transformation, with a secondary theme of tonic and dominant notes and chords. When the piano enters with the first theme, the expository material is repeated with variations, virtuoso figurations, and modified harmonies. The second theme enters in the unusual key of B minor before moving to B major and at last to the expected key of B♭ major several bars later.

Following the opening flourish, the movement follows Beethoven's three-theme sonata structure for a concerto. The orchestral exposition is a two-theme sonata exposition, but the second exposition with the piano introduces a triumphant, virtuosic third theme that belongs solely to the solo instrument, a trademark of Beethoven's concertos. 

Playing The Piano Concerto No. 5

The coda elaborates upon the open-ended first theme, building in intensity before finishing in a final climactic arrival at the tonic E♭ major.

The second movement in B major forms a quiet nocturne for the solo piano, muted strings, and wind instruments that converse with the solo piano. The third movement begins without interruption when a lone bassoon note B drops a semitone to B♭, the dominant of the tonic key E♭. The end of the second movement was written to build directly into the third.

The final movement of the concerto is a seven-part rondo form (ABACABA). The solo piano introduces the main theme before the full orchestra affirms the soloist's statement. The rondo's B-section begins with piano scales, before the orchestra again responds. The C-section is much longer, presenting the theme from the A-section in three different keys before the piano performs a passage of arpeggios. Rather than finishing with a strong entrance from the orchestra, however, the trill ending the cadenza dies away until the introductory theme reappears, played first by the piano and then the orchestra. In the last section, the theme undergoes variation before the concerto ends with a short cadenza and robust orchestral response.

Download Narrative Analysis of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5

Ludwig van Beethoven (17 December 1770-26 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Classical music, he remains one of the most recognised and influential of all composers. His best-known compositions include 9 symphonies; 5 piano concertos; 1 violin concerto; 32 piano sonatas; 16 string quartets; a mass, the Missa solemnis; and an opera, Fidelio.

Beethoven was born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of the Holy Roman Empire. He displayed his musical talents at an early age and was taught by his father Johann van Beethoven and composer and conductor Christian Gottlob Neefe. At the age of 21 Beethoven moved to Vienna, where he began studying composition with Joseph Haydn and gained a reputation as a virtuoso pianist. He lived in Vienna until his death. By his late 20s his hearing began to deteriorate and by the last decade of his life he was almost completely deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.

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Music is a higher revelation than 

all wisdom and philosophy.

Ludwig van Beethoven