Phone
Tablet - Portrait
Tablet - Landscape
Desktop
Toggle navigation
Performers
Steinway Performers
Albright, Charlie
Anderson, Greg
Arishima, Miyako
Benoit, David
Biegel, Jeffrey
Birnbaum, Adam
Braid, David
Brown, Deondra
Brown, Desirae
Brown, Gregory
Brown, Melody
Brown, Ryan
Caine, Uri
Chen, Sean
Chulochnikova, Tatiana
Deveau, David
Farkas, Gabor
Feinberg, Alan
Fung, David
Gagne, Chantale
Golan, Jeanne
Goodyear, Stewart
Graybil, Matthew
Gryaznov, Vyacheslav
Gugnin, Andrey
Han, Anna
Han, Yoonie
Iturrioz, Antonio
Khristenko, Stanislav
Kim, Daniel
Li, Zhenni
Lin, Jenny
Lo Bianco, Moira
Lu, Shen
Mahan, Katie
Mao, Weihui
Melemed, Mackenzie
Min, Klara
Mndoyants, Nikita
Moutouzkine, Alexandre
Mulligan, Simon
Myer, Spencer
O'Conor, John
O'Riley, Christopher
Osterkamp, Leann
Paremski, Natasha
Perez, Vanessa
Petersen, Drew
Polk, Joanne
Pompa-Baldi, Antonio
Rangell, Andrew
Roe, Elizabeth Joy
Rose, Earl
Russo, Sandro
Schepkin, Sergei
Scherbakov, Konstantin
Shin, ChangYong
Tak, Young-Ah
Ziegler, Pablo
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Back 1 step
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Concerto for Piano no 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 "Emperor"
Interpretations
About This Work
Controls
Cover
Artists
Label
Movements
×
Add To Playlist
Success
This selection has been added.
Playlist
Create
Cancel
Confirm
Cancel
About This Work
As is true of many of the composer's works with nicknames -- e.g. the "Moonlight" Sonata, the "Spring" Sonata -- the "Emperor" moniker attached to Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73 (1809) is not the composer's own. Still, there is hardly an adjective that could more aptly evoke the work's impressive scale and majesty. Despite its considerable technical demands, the "Emperor" Concerto handily transcends the typical role of the concerto as a mere virtuoso vehicle. Indeed, it is virtually symphonic in conception; its E flat major key (the same as that of the "Eroica" Symphony), expansive form, and sometimes martial, always grand, character grant the concerto a place among the defining works in the composer's heroic vein. The first performance of the Concerto was likely that given by Friedrich Schneider in Leipzig on November 28, 1811.
The Concerto No. 5 is Beethoven's final essay in the concerto genre. He may have lost interest in concertante works at least in part because of his advancing deafness, which brought an end to his own career as a pianist. Tellingly, he himself never publicly played the Concerto No. 5, though he had written his four previous piano concerti for his own use on the concert stage. Moreover, the athletic, virtuoso ideal rarely fit the language of Beethoven's late works, even though some of the last piano sonatas are punishingly difficult.
In the Piano Concerto No. 4, Beethoven made a striking break with convention in commencing the work with a piano solo. In the opening Allegro of No. 5, he takes this idea to an extreme, providing the soloist with an extended cadenza, punctuated by tutti chords from the orchestra, that outlines in miniature the entire 20-minute movement. The main theme is marchlike and assertive; the somewhat more relaxed second theme first appears cloaked in mystery, in a minor-key version that soon gives way to the expected statement in the dominant major. The grandeur of the movement is colored by excursions to remote keys that, however, never fully thwart the powerful forward drive.
The lyrical and idyllic second movement, Adagio un poco moto, is one of Beethoven's most tender and intimate statements. The piano predominates here -- not in a virtuoso context, but in a manner and texture that prefigure the nocturnes of Chopin. A long dominant pedal underpins a muted, even ethereal transition to the Rondo. In contrast to the noble magnificence of the opening Allegro, the Rondo is a movement of jubilant affirmation, evidenced at once by the upward-surging, dance-like main theme. Though the ambitious conception of the Concerto remains ever at the fore in the Rondo, Beethoven nevertheless does not shy away from providing the soloist with passages of exceptional brilliance.
-- Michael Rodman, All Music Guide
×
Add To Playlist
Success
This selection has been added.
Playlist
Create
Cancel
Confirm
Cancel
CB5406D0F5BB5897BB8E260E319A521E