Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
A Genre Grows Up
CATALOG
Piano Concertos WoO 4: No. 0 in E-at Major 1784 Opus 19: No. 2 in B-at Major 1787-89; 1795 Opus 15: No. 1 in C Major 1796-97 Opus 37: No. 3 in C Minor 1800-01 Opus 61a: Arrangement of Violin Concerto 1806 Opus 78: No. 5 in E-at Major 1809-10
CATALOG
Op. 56: Triple Concerto (Violin, Cello, Piano) 1805 Op. 61: Violin Concerto in D Major 1806
Part I
Part II
Reprise
Ant
Cons
Ant
Cons
Transition Excursion
Secondary Closing
Transition
Part I Part II Part III = Part I
Reprise
Ant
Cons
Ant
Cons
THE RONDO
Blends Rondo with Sonata Form, a fairly recent development during the 1780s and a difcult structure to manage. The piano writing is brilliant and effective. The orchestra is Mozartean throughout, but the languageespecially the shifting chromatic moodsis distinctly Beethoven.
Exposition Reprise
B-flat Major
Trans
Excursion 1
F Major
Trans
Reprise
B-flat Major
Trans
Development (Excursion 2) 1
G Minor
2
C Minor
3
B-flat Minor
Trans
Recapitulation Reprise
B-flat Major
Trans
Excursion 1
B-flat Major
Trans
Reprise
B-flat Major
Coda
Appears to have been premiered on December 18, 1795 as part of a concert of three of Haydns London symphonies. Haydn had just returned from London.
C MAJOR
FIRST MOVEMENT
Classical-era double-exposition sonata form. But the Development is a very special passage that points clearly to Beethovens mature style.
C# Major F# Major B Major E Major A Major D Major G Major C Major F Major Bb Major Eb Major Ab Major Db Major Gb Major Cb Major
Exposition: C Major to G Development: G to Major E-at Major to Major F GMinor Minor Major then C Major
C# Major F# Major B Major E Major A Major D Major G Major C Major F Major Bb Major Eb Major Ab Major Db Major Gb Major Cb Major F Minor G Minor
FINALE
Beethoven gives the concerto a grand send-off with a jovial, rhythmic nale, in Rondo form. The second excursion reminded commentator Michael Steinberg of 1940s lm star Carmen Miranda and her song Tico, Tico. Well hear the middle of the movement: Reprise 2 Excursion 2 Reprise 3
I saw almost nothing but empty leaves; at the most, on one page or another a few Egyptian hieroglyphs wholly unintelligible to me were scribbled down to serve as clues for him; for he played nearly all the solo part from memory since, as was so often the case, he had not had time to set it all down on paper. He gave me a secret glance whenever he was at the end of one of the invisible passages, and my scarcely concealable anxiety not to miss the decisive moment amused him greatly and he laughed heartily at the jovial supper which we ate afterwards.
THE CONCERTO
More compact, less showy than the C Major concerto. Angular, with a tendency to be sparse in its form and in the style of the piano writing. Follows the Classical double-exposition form. Well hear the Second Expositionwith the pianos entrance.
Primary
Transition
Secondary
Transition
Closing
Development
CULTURAL SHIFT
Audiences were accustomed to waiting for the soloist to enter, given the long rst exposition of doubleexposition sonata form. It made sense when the conductor and soloist were one and the same person. But early on composers challenged that status quo.
So imagine the audiences surprise when the concerto began like this:
SECOND MOVEMENT
Perhaps the biggest surprise comes with the slow movement. Orchestra: demanding, erceall in octaves, no harmonies. Piano: soft, beguiling, harmonized throughout. The two alternate back and forth, sometimes at length, and sometimes the conversation grows a bit more insistent.
Discussions about this movements being about Orpheus taming the wild beasts with his lute go as far back as 1859 and have continued to this day.
Orchestra
Piano
Cadenza
Written in 1806; premiered December 23 of that year. Written for violinist Franz Clement.
FRANZ CLEMENT
Poorly treated by posterity. Superb musician and violinistworked with Haydn in London. Was concertmaster for the legendary 1808 performance of Haydns The Creation in Vienna.
FRANZ CLEMENT
Apparently Beethoven gave Clement all of 2 days to learn the Violin Concerto. The story that Clement inserted a gimmicky piece between 1st and 2nd movements, with the violin held upside down, is incorrect. He did play such a piece, but at the end of the program, not during Beethovens concertohe was far too good a musician to pull a stunt like that.
Beethovens Violin Concerto is gigantic, one of the most spacious concertos ever written, but so quiet that when it was a novelty most people complained quite as much of its insignicance as of its length. All its most famous strokes of genius are not only mysteriously quiet, but mysterious in radiantly happy surroundings.
...the function of the violin in Beethovens Concerto is to be decorative, fanciful, capricious, more often a commentator on than an initiator of ideas. Beethoven wrote to [Clements] strength, and this is music, therefore, for a violinist with a light hand, one of an indescribably delicacy, neatness, and elegance, an extremely delightful tenderness and purity. Michael Steinberg
First Exposition
Primary Disturb Primary Transition Secondary Secondary Transition Closing
OTHER CONCERTOS
Piano Concerto No. 5 Emperor in 1809 Beethovens last concerto. The Triple Concerto of 1804. The piano arrangement of the Violin Concerto.