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A guide to the music of Beethoven's piano concerto No.4. As if to underline this ‘opposite is also true’ thesis, Beethoven based the Fourth Piano Concerto’s long first movement on the same rhythmic pattern as the famous da-da-da-DAH ‘Fate’ motif that launches the Fifth Symphony. But it’s hard to imagine anything less like that ...
Dec 29, 2020 · In 1806, Beethoven wrote his Violin Concerto in D major, op. 61. In 1807, he took the work that was clearly more pianistic than violinistic and rewrote it for piano as Op. 61a. Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto in D Major, Op. 61a – III. Rondo (Daniel Barenboim, piano; English Chamber Orchestra; Daniel Barenboim, cond.)
- Beethoven’s Five (or So) Piano Concertos
- Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1
- Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2
- Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3
- Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4
- Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5
- Recommended Recording
Beethoven’s five piano concertos are all in three movements. Here their similarities end. The wonderful thing about Beethoven – OK, one of many wonderful things – is that he never repeats himself. The earliest of Beethoven’s piano concertos that we generally hear, No. 2, was first drafted in the late 1780s and the last completed in 1809-10, by whic...
The C major concerto, the official No. 1, was a case in point. Beethoven premiered it in 1795 in his first public concert in Vienna, having written the finale only two days earlier. His friend Franz Wegeler recalled him racing against the clock to finish it, handing over the sheets of manuscript page by fresh page to four copyists waiting outside. ...
Of No. 2 in B flat major, Beethoven wrote self-deprecatingly to his publisher: “This concerto I only value at 10 ducats… I do not give it out as one of my best.” Yet if he hadn’t written anymore, we would still love him for this work. Genial, warm, sometimes ridiculously funny – try those off-beat loping rhythms in the finale – the B flat piano con...
If there’s a key in Beethoven associated with high drama, it is C minor: he used it for the Symphony No. 5, the ‘Pathétique’ Sonata, much later his last piano sonata, Op. 111, and the Piano Concerto No. 3. This was written as the 19th century was taking wing; its first performance, given by the composer himself, was on 5 April 1803. Only six months...
In the Piano Concerto No. 4in G major, Beethoven inhabits new worlds that are both brave and breathtaking. It is brave, for a start, to begin a concerto with the soloist playing alone, very quietly. The piano’s initial phrase – a soft G major chord that pulses, then expands towards a questioning cadence – poses a challenge to the orchestra, which r...
The last concerto, subtitled the ‘Emperor’, is in Beethoven’s old favorite key of E flat major, and it lives up to its nickname in terms of grandeur, poise, and scale of conception. This is the only one of Beethoven’s piano concertos that the composer did not perform himself: by the time of its premiere in January 1811, his hearing loss was making ...
Krystian Zimerman and Sir Simon Rattle’s landmark recording of Beethoven’s Complete Piano Concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra was a major highlight of the celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. Their outstanding performances, streamed on DG Stage from LSO St Luke’s and recorded live by Deutsche Grammophon in Decem...
- Jessica Duchen
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Apr 18, 2023 · Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos - The young Shanghai-born pianist Haochen Zhang, a Cliburn Competition gold medalist, provides a delightfully dashing contrast to Stutzmann’s robust manner, with elegant, yet richly colorful tonality that seems rooted in an 18th-century sensibility, even amidst the grandiosity of the “Emperor” Concerto, the last of the set of five.
The best recordings of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 5, 'Emperor' | Gramophone. Gramophone. Wednesday, February 15, 2017. A quick guide to the most outstanding recordings of Beethoven's revolutionary piano concerto. Welcome to Gramophone ...
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