Hello Everyone,

Conditions that have been imposed on us again have stirred me into action one last time before this momentous year ends. There is a lot about which to feel sorry for oneself (and I do!), but I do know that I am one of the lucky ones with home company for Christmas and, so far, good health.  Although I have lost a lot of work, including the run of the 11 Christmas concerts in the Royal Albert Hall, it’s relatively small compared with what others have lost and the pressures which have renewed for the NHS and other health providers from cleaners to consultants. The plight of the elderly and lonely should not be applied only to Christmas. I hope in future we might think more of the planet first above spending.

I have wondered what to write about, with obvious choices of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Handel’s Messiah, or, less obviously, Schütz’s wonderful Christmas Story (really worth a listen).  However, for various reasons I come back to Beethoven with some easy and familiar listening as it’s Christmas, but no less great. Beethoven’s music is timeless, and with the political upheavals currently surrounding us, that is probably a good thing 

Last week marked the 250^th anniversary of Beethoven’s death.  It has not been a good year to revere this most prolific composer, with the majority of concerts celebrating his music cancelled.  I had looked forward to conducting two performances of his mighty Missa Solemnis (see my Blog No12), and an Eroica Symphony, but they were not to be. I am tempted to write about the Eroica, an epic and epoch-making composition which I may come back to one day. I watched again the film The King’s Speech the other day, and the slow movement of Beethoven’s 5^th piano concerto found me hiding my face and reaching for the tissues. It may be easy listening, but still a mighty work by possibly the greatest of the greatest. Don’t judge Beethoven on the physical demands of singing the 9^th symphony. At this historic moment of change in the UK, one should consider Beethoven and his concept of freedom (Fidelio), and the ‘brotherhood of man’ (9^th Symphony). He would have been a profound exponent of the European ideal.  I will leave that thought here; there is more for those who wish to look further in an extra blog. 

Beethoven:  Piano Concerto No.5 in E flat, Op. 73
Beethoven wrote his final piano concerto in 1809-10 and dedicated it to Archduke Rudolph of Austria. The title ‘Emperor’ is one of which Beethoven would probably not have approved, for the same reasons that he withdrew his dedication of the Eroica symphony to Napoleon.  It is the grandest and most expansive of his five piano concertos, and one of the landmarks of his ‘middle period’, a time which also featured his 3^rd to  8^th symphonies, much piano and chamber music and his opera Fidelio. The power and expressive range of the piano had developed considerably during Beethoven’s lifetime, but modern performances surpass in volume anything Beethoven would have heard had he been able to do so.  He was so deaf by the time of his 5^th concerto that he was unable to perform it, despite his earlier renown as a pianist. The frame and build of the piano was still all wood, with much less tension in the strings than nowadays, and lighter hammers.  It was only when the iron-framed pianos were developed in the decades after his death that powerful modern performances were possible.  I think Beethoven would have enjoyed the modern pianos!

1^st Movement
Some of what follows is mildly technical and easily skipped over if a reader so wishes.
The construction of the 1^st movement broadly follows the path set by Mozart (cf Blog No.6). Normally the orchestra alone would play the opening section on its own, but even Mozart made an exception with his early E flat piano concerto, K.271. In the same way as Mozart then, Beethoven announces the orchestral opening together with the piano, as he had done in his concerto No.4.  In all these three cases this amounts to little more than an introductory statement saying ‘this is going to become a piano concerto’, and after the initial flurries the piano stays quiet while the orchestra goes through the process of presenting the main themes of the movement. These first orchestral sections are commonly referred to as ‘opening ritornelli’, presenting much of the music to follow in the home key.  This is different from a ‘sonata form’ symphony whose first section would end in a ‘related’ key such as the dominant, and then be repeated. This opening is full of Beethovenian energy, and at one stage (bar 90) actually reaches what is effectively the biggest climax of the entire work. 

At the end of this orchestral opening the piano re-enters with a rising chromatic scale. Themes are recycled and developed passing through a variety of keys, and at one point  striking an interesting relationship between B flat major, B minor and C flat major (alias B major), something which will have later significance.  After the first main ‘Exposition’ section involving the piano, the chromatic scale returns and the Development further extends ideas from the earlier opening.  Much of the piano writing takes the form of scales and arpeggios, manoeuvring around the themes played by the orchestra.  The final section, ‘Recapitualtion’, is prepared and announced by repeating the triplet figure from the first orchestral theme, gradually building to a demonstrative re-statement of the very beginning of the work. 

There is a tricky moment of coordination for the conductor who has to bring in the orchestra together at the end of a fast-moving downward scale followed by a rising chromatic scale (try it!), at the end of which the orchestra has to come in together in a bold forte.  One eminent conductor solved the problem with the pianist slowing almost to a halt before playing the loud chord.  Others performances are not together, though on modern recordings, with the opportunity of retakes, one can usually fix it (more dangerous in a concert hall).  In my last outing conducting the work the pianist told me to count five beats – and it worked every time – I don’t know how!  In all other similar instances I can think of from all the Mozart and Beethoven concertos, such joins have a measured number of beats and notes from the soloist and this makes live much simpler. Some of the joins are quiet, enabling one to tell the orchestra to play a fraction of a second late.  Nobody notices! 

The close of the movement is extended after the relatively short cadenza and there are further revisits and revisions of some of the main themes.  The piano is again mostly playing scales and arpeggios, which may on the surface suggest dullness, but this is far from that.  The energetic impetus which was part of Beethoven’s genius is ever-present, and the interweaving between piano and orchestra is extremely fine.

2^nd Movement
This is one of the most touchingly expressive and lyrical slow movements that Beethoven wrote.  Beethoven uses the key of the ‘flattened submediant’.  A brief explanation of what that means. The submediant is the 6^th degree of the scale, which, in C major, is A (CDEFGA ascending).  The note is then flattened to A flat.  This concerto is in E flat.  Six notes climbing from E flat brings you to C. The flattened 6^th is then C flat, which is the key of the slow movement, except that he writes it in B major for simplicity sake (C flat = B).  I only labour this point at all because it sounds effective, and was used frequently by Schubert in songs and symphonies, and before him Haydn and others.

The strings alone introduce the slow movement theme, muted and as if from another world.  The piano enters and never have scales sounded so intense at the three moments (bars 20, 21 and 22) where the piano clashes one note apart from the violins before settling onto their notes in turn.  It could be Chopin, who will have taken note of this. It is a movement of two halves, the second being an extended and embellished repeat.  The piano plays in broken chords, as distinct from arpeggios, hauntingly decorating the melodies in the orchestra, the movement as a whole being a gem of great beauty.

Beethoven needs to get back to E flat major for the third and final movement, which he accomplishes with almost cheeky simplicity. Near the end of this B major (aslia C flat major…) slow movement the horns quietly shove the note B down a semitone to B flat, which is the Dominant note (= 5^th note of the major scale and therefore very closely related in musical terms) of E flat major.  This semitone shift is a similar device to that which I mentioned above in the first movement, changing from B flat major to C flat.  Job done, and after a few bars hinting at the opening of what is to follow, off we hurtle into the final movement.

3^rd Movement

The finale is one of rhythmic and off-beat energy from the start, with more subtle and involved sections separating the returns of the main idea - the ‘rondo’ theme - one which comes ‘round’ again.  It is more complex than a simple rondo, with rich developments and variety of keys, mainly in the ‘Episodes’, a technical term in music, referring to the sections which separate the main statements of the rondo theme.  The rondo sections always return in the main key of E flat major (or eventually get there).  The middle Episode is complex with the main rondo theme being presented in new ways and in various keys.  A short cadenza before the finish is joined by a solo timpani, slowing right down before hurtling off in rising and falling scales at a faster tempo than the rest of the movement.  Here is another join for the conductor, but this one is all measured out and easy to follow.  The concerto ends abruptly and with a considerable flourish.

I have tried to avoid being too technical - not always easily achieved, and it is enough to listen to this powerful work, which is a precursor to the two monumental concertos by Brahms half a century later.  Liszt was profoundly impressed by it too.

Beethoven’s anniversary has been overshadowed, but this is his time and I have chosen this piece as a work of hope for a better year to come. It is brilliant, emotional and deep, but not dark. Beethoven in his heart and considerable mind was a man for the people of the whole world; ‘’diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt”, as he quoted Schiller in his 9^th Symphony.

I hope you enjoy listening to it afresh, even though it is not Christmas music. I hope you all have a good Christmas and New Year (my first New Year not in Sweden since 1976).  My following Blog No. 21 is about something completely different, and non-musical.

Keep well, and once again, remember all our front-line careworkers and providers in their renewed struggle on everyone’s behalf during this pandemic.

Richard