The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E major, Op. 73, known as the Emperor Concerto in English-speaking countries, is a concerto composed by Ludwig van Beethoven for piano and orchestra.
Beethoven composed the concerto in 1809 under salary in Vienna, and he dedicated it to Archduke Rudolf, who was his patron, friend, and pupil.
Its public premiere was on 28 November 1811 in Leipzig, with Friedrich Schneider as the soloist and Johann Philipp Christian Schulz conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra.
Beethoven, usually the soloist, could not perform due to declining hearing.
The work's military aspects and symbolism characterize its heroic style.
Beethoven took novel approaches with the piece, such as beginning the solo entrance without orchestral introduction, lengthening the concerto, and creating a new relationship between piano and orchestra.
The first of its three movements, Allegro, is in sonata form and is longer than any opening movement of Beethoven's earlier piano concertos.
The second movement, Adagio un poco mosso, is a nocturne that directly builds into the third movement.
The last movement, Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo, is in seven-part rondo form.
The concerto is approximately forty minutes.
The origin of the epithet Emperor is uncertain; it may have been coined by Johann Baptist Cramer, the English publisher of the concerto.
The concerto has no association with any emperor, and according to Donald Tovey and Betsy Schwarm, Beethoven would have disliked it due to his disapproval of Napoleon's conquest.
As part of his repertoire, Franz Liszt frequently performed the concerto throughout his life.
Background
Beethoven's return to Vienna from Heiligenstadt in 1802 marked a change in musical style and is now often designated as the start of his middle or "heroic" period characterized by many original works composed on a grand scale.
In the autumn of 1808, after being rejected for a position at the Royal Theatre, Beethoven received an offer from Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte, then king of Westphalia, for a well-paid position as Kapellmeister at the court in Cassel.
To persuade him to stay in Vienna, Archduke Rudolf, Prince Kinsky, and Prince Lobkowitz pledged to pay him a pension of 4000 florins a year.
Archduke Rudolf paid his share of the salary on the agreed date.
Kinsky, immediately called to military duty, did not contribute and died in November 1812 after falling from his horse.
When the Austrian currency destabilized in 1811, Lobkowitz went bankrupt.
To benefit from the agreement, Beethoven had to obtain recourse from the law, which in 1815 brought him some payment.
Beethoven felt the Napoleonic Wars reaching Vienna in early 1809 and completed writing the piano concerto in April while Vienna was under siege by Napoleon's armies.
He wrote to his publisher in July 1809 that there was "nothing but drums, cannons, men, misery of all sorts" around him.
To save his hearing, he fled to his brother's cellar and covered his ears with pillows.
The work's heroic style reflects the war-ridden era in its military topics and heroic tone.
Beethoven often composed in E-flat for noble music, and audiences in his time would recognize E-flat's significance.
Beethoven experimented with new techniques, such as the piano entrance beginning earlier than typical and with a cadenza.
The concerto's public premiere was on 28 November 1811 in Leipzig, with Friedrich Schneider as the soloist.
Beethoven's hearing loss did not prevent him from composing music, but it made playing at concerts increasingly difficult.
The concerto debuted in Vienna on 12 February 1812, with Carl Czerny, Beethoven's pupil, as the soloist.
The English premiere was on 24 June 1829, with Felix Mendelssohn as the soloist.Wilfrid Blunt, On Wings of Song (1974), p. 100
The origins of the concerto's epithet, Emperor, are obscure and no consensus exists on its origin.
An unlikely and unauthenticated story says that at the first Vienna performance, a French officer said, "C'est l'Empereur!"
Other sources say that Johann Baptist Cramer coined it.
According to Donald Tovey and Betsy Schwarm, Beethoven would have disliked the epithet due to his disapproval of Napoleon's conquest.
Beethoven had previously reconsidered the dedication of his third symphony; initially dedicated to Napoleon, Beethoven changed it after Napoleon assumed the title of emperor in 1804.
According to Yan Shen, musicologists agree that the concerto has no connection to an emperor.
Archduke Rudolf of Austria was Beethoven's aristocratic patron, and in 1803 or 1804, Rudolf began studying piano and composition with Beethoven.
They became friends, and their meetings continued until 1824.
Beethoven dedicated many pieces to him, including this concerto.
Music
Overview
The concerto is divided into the following three movements:
The concerto is scored for 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, the 2nd flute, 2nd clarinet, trumpets, and timpani are tacet.
Beethoven began innovating the piano concerto genre with his third piano concerto and continued through his fifth piano concerto.
While Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's piano concertos consisted of the piano and orchestra working in tandem, in Beethoven's last two piano concertos, the pianist was the "hero," the dominant and directional soloist.
"Whereas in Mozart's concertos soloist and ensemble work in tandem, in Beethoven's the soloist is clearly the hero.
Also, in Mozart's concertos, the soloist was a virtuoso and more important than the composer; in Beethoven's, the pianist is a vector for the composer. "
... they increasingly cast the composer, not the performer, as the works' hero.
Beethoven created the tradition of linking movements in concertos, especially the middle and the last.
Subsequent composers connected and transitioned through all movements in an attempt to create unity in a piece.
I. Allegro
The first movement is longer than any that Beethoven had previously composed in the piano concerto genre.
Beethoven adhered to the traditional sonata form but significantly redefined the interaction between piano and orchestra.
The opening cadenza precedes orchestral exposition, solo exposition, development, recapitulation, written cadenza, and a coda.
Beethoven explicitly forbids the soloist from performing their own cadenza, a shift from previous piano concertos.
Stephan Lindeman and William Kinderman have speculated that Beethoven wanted to control all aspects of the piece since he could not personally perform it or create a better flow without a virtuosic interruption.
Following this piece, composers wrote cadenzas instead of leaving them to the performer.
Introduction and exposition
The concerto opens with the orchestra offering three sonorous chords.
The solo piano responds to each chord with flourishes of arpeggios, trills, and scales.
This opening was new in classical concertos, and the flourishes almost became thematic.
\relative c' {   \override TupletBracket #'stencil = ##f   \override Score.BarNumber #'stencil = ##f   \key es \major \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 120   es2~\f es8 \times 2/3 { f16( es d) } es8-.
f-.
|   g4( es c) bes8.
bes16 |   es2~\sf es8 \times 2/3 { f16( es d) } es8-.
f-.
|   g4( es c) bes8.
bes16 |   d2\sf es8 r f r |   g2\sf as4.
\sf f8 |   es4\p }
The propulsive first theme follows, and the expository material repeats with variations, virtuoso figurations, and modified harmonies.
The second theme, a march, appears first in B minor form in the strings, then thematically shifts to C-flat major by the horns.
Throughout the movement, Beethoven transforms these themes into a range of keys, moods, and figurations.
Following the opening, the movement follows Beethoven's three-theme sonata structure for a concerto.
The orchestral exposition is a two-theme sonata exposition.
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.
The coda elaborates upon the open-ended first theme, building intensity before finishing into a final climactic arrival at the tonic E major.
II.
Adagio un poco mosso
\relative c' { \set Staff.midiInstrument = #"string ensemble 1"   \key b \major \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 60   dis2(\p cis4 dis |   b4 e cis2) |   fis4 fis( gis ais |   b4 dis, cis2) | }
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 movement briefly changes to D major, a very remote key from the concerto's E♭ major.
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 builds directly into the third.
Beethoven uses B major as a “surprise” key for abrupt distant key relationships.
This resolves to B in the transition to the last movement.
III.
Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo
\relative c {   \key es \major \time 6/8 \set Score.tempoHideNote = ##t \tempo 4 = 150   \partial 16 bes16 | bes8\ff( es) es([ g)] r g16( bes) |   bes16( es) es4~\sf es es16( g) |   f8\p r d16( f) es8 r g,16( bes) |   bes4\trill~ bes16 a bes4 }
The final movement of the concerto is a seven-part rondo form (ABACABA).
The solo piano introduces the main theme before the 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, 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.
Reception
Contemporary reception was positive, with reviews praising its originality and beauty.
One review said:  Criticism fell on the concerto's length, saying that its duration took away from its beauty.
According to Betsy Schwarm, the piece was a favorite of Franz Liszt.
Liszt frequently performed the concerto throughout his life, including at the unveiling of the Beethoven Monument in 1845, at an 1841 performance reviewed by Richard Wagner, and at an 1877 all-Beethoven concert with Ferruccio Busoni in attendance.
At the 1877 concert, Liszt played with nine fingers because of an injury to his left hand.
Eleven-year-old Busoni was "bitterly disappointed" at his performance; he was the only one who noticed.
The musicologist Alfred Einstein described the concerto as "the apotheosis of the military concept."
He believed it was the sister work of Eroica because it evokes imagery of an emperor such as Napoleon. , it was the most performed piano concerto at Carnegie Hall, with 215 performances.
Recordings
Notable recordings
On 2 October 1912, Frank La Forge recorded the adagio movement with a studio orchestra for the Victor Talking Machine Company; the recording was issued as Victor 55030-A.
In 1922, Frederic Lamond made the first complete recording with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra under Eugene Goossens.
In 1945, Walter Gieseking made a stereophonic tape recording for German radio with the Grosses Funkorcheser under Artur Rother.
It is one of the earliest stereo recordings and one of about 500 such recordings made during the war, of which five survived.
During the quiet passages, anti-aircraft weapons can be heard.
As part of complete recordings of Beethoven's piano concertos, Piano Concerto No. 5 was recorded by Wilhelm Backhaus in 1927, Artur Schnabel in the early 1930's, Leon Fleisher in 1959-1961, Daniel Barenboim in 1967 and 2012, Vladimir Ashkenazy three times, and Maurizio Pollini twice.
Other commercial recordings
March 1927: Ignaz Friedman with the New Queen's Hall Orchestra under Henry Wood; this recording no longer exists.
12 May 1940: Josef Hofmann with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Hans Lange.
Arthur Rubinstein recorded it three times for RCA Victor, with Josef Krips, Erich Leinsdorf, and Daniel Barenboim.
1952: Vladimir Horowitz in live performance at Carnegie Hall with RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner., Vladimir Horowitz, 1952
Wilhelm Kempff recorded it with Paul van Kempen in 1953 and with Ferdinand Leitner in 1961.
Rudolf Serkin recorded it four times: with the New York Philharmonic under Bruno Walter in 1941; with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy in 1953; with the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein in 1962; and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa in 1981.
Claudio Arrau recorded it four times: with Alceo Galliera in 1958, Bernard Haitink in 1964, and twice with Sir Colin Davis, first with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and later with the Staatskapelle Dresden.
Glenn Gould recorded this concerto with Leopold Stokowski (the only recording the two ever made together) using somewhat non-traditional phrasings and tempi, as was typical of Gould's interpretations.
Gould also recorded it with Karel Ančerl.
Alfred Brendel recorded all of Beethoven's piano concertos at least three times over his career.
1971: Friedrich Gulda recorded all of Beethoven's piano concertos with the Vienna Philharmonic under Horst Stein.
Alicia de Larrocha recorded it first in 1978 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta and then all of Beethoven's piano concertos with Riccardo Chailly and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1983–1984.
1986: Murray Perahia recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink.
1989: Krystian Zimerman in live performance with the Vienna Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, shortly before his death.
The performance was filmed and released on DVD.
2005: Richard Goode recorded all of Beethoven's piano concertos with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer.
December 2006: Hélène Grimaud in live performance with the Staatskapelle Dresden under Vladimir Jurowski.
2010: Paul Lewis recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jiří Bělohlávek.
2012: Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos in the album "the Beethoven Journey", with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
References
Notes
Citations
Sources
Book sources
Other sources
External links
Original autograph, 1809, Berlin State Library
Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto Analysis and description of Beethoven's Fifth Emperor Piano Concerto
BBC Discovering Music – analysis (RealAudio, 29 minutes)
05 Category:1809 compositions Category:Compositions in E-flat major Category:Music with dedications
