Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)
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Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, op. 73, known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last piano concerto. It was written in 1809 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven's patron and pupil. The first performance took place in December 1810 in Leipzig.
Like the Moonlight Sonata, the title of Emperor is not Beethoven's own. This three movement work was completed in 1811; it has a duration of approximately 38 minutes.
The concerto is scored for solo piano, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and strings. It is divided into three movements:
As Beethoven's other final concerti, Piano Concerto No. 5 has a long initial movement. The Violin Concerto has the longest at 25 minutes; the Piano Concerto Nos. 4 and 5 each have opening movements about 20 minutes long.
[edit] Analysis
The piece begins with three full orchestra chords, each followed by a short cadenza, improvisatory in nature but written out in the score. These short cadenzas show up intermittently throughout the piece. As the Classical era transitioned into the Romantic era, composers began experimenting with the solo instrument(s) introducing the music. Beethoven had already done it once, with his Fourth Piano Concerto, but this work's monumental piano introduction, which takes nearly two minutes without introducing thematic material, foreshadows concerti to come, like Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto or Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto in B flat minor.
The first movement is deceptively complex. Despite its use of simple chords, including a second theme constructed almost entirely out of I's and V's, it is full of complex thematic transformations. The complexity is intensified once the piano enters with the first theme, as the expository material is repeated with far more complex variations, virtuoso figurations, complex modified chords, and the second theme enters in B major.
Aside from the opening cadenzas, the movement follows Beethoven's trademark three-theme sonata structure for a concerto. The orchestral exposition is a typical two-theme sonata exposition, but the "second exposition" with the piano has a triumphant virtuoso third theme at the end that belongs solely to the solo instrument. Beethoven does this in many of his concertos. The coda at the end of the movement is quite long, and, again typical of Beethoven, uses the open-ended first theme and gives it closure to create a satisfying conclusion.
The heroic nature of the movement is perhaps exemplified in a passage in the development section, where it seems the piano and the orchestra are going to war — and the piano wins.
The second movement is in B major, and the third is a sonata-rondo in E flat major. The second movement famously transitions to the third movement without interruption, as a lone B in the bassoons suddenly drops a semitone to B flat, the dominant of E flat.
[edit] External links
- Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto Analysis and description of Beethoven's Fifth "Emperor" Piano Concerto
- BBC Discovering Music (browse for .ram file containing analysis of this work)
