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Mar 22, 2023 · Beethoven – Piano Concerto No.4. Beethoven’s sublime Fourth Piano Concerto was premiered at a historic concert on 22 December 1808 as part of a bumper programme which also included his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies as well as the Choral Fantasy. A review at the time called the work ‘singular, artistic and complex’, and apart from being ...
- The 20 Greatest Beethoven Works of All Time
An exposed opening for solo violin, double-stopping across...
- Beethoven: The Piano Concertos
Beethoven composed several concertos during his teens – the...
- The 20 Greatest Beethoven Works of All Time
- 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
- 11 min
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Dec 29, 2020 · We look at the piano and violin concertos that Beethoven wrote, as well as a selection of the best recordings by Kovacevich, Pollini, and others.
A guide to Beethoven's piano concerto no.4 and its best recordings - Classical Music.
- Jessica Duchen
- 21 min
- Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 – and No. 5 too. Composers have been trying to beat Beethoven for 200 years. Few succeed. Choosing the best of his five piano concertos is an unenviable task – and so I suggest both his Fourth and Fifth concertos as equal crowning glories of the repertoire.
- Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2. Come on, don’t be mean – this concerto is perfect. It’s almost impossible to fault one page, one phrase, one note in one of the greatest piano concertos.
- Mozart: Piano Concerto In C Minor, K491. Mozart’s 27 piano concertos comprise the largest body of piano concertos that are regularly heard in concert halls, although (scandalously) a relatively small handful are regularly performed.
- Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1. This concerto took two different forms – symphony, then two-piano sonata – before settling down as a concerto. It was profoundly affected by the fate of Robert Schumann.
Mar 11, 2013 · 11 March 2013, 15:59 | Updated: 4 April 2016, 12:38. Beethoven completed five Piano Concertos in under 20 years, but from the age of 38 he would never finish one again as his deafness stopped him from performing, writes John Suchet. Five completed Piano Concertos, spanning a period from when Beethoven was around 19 or 20 to when he was just 38.
