Work composed: 1809. Dedicated to Beethoven’s patron and student, Archduke Rudolph.

World premiere: Johann Philipp Christian Schulz led the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig on November 28, 1811, with Friedrich Schneider at the piano.

Instrumentation: solo piano, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

Estimated duration: 38 minutes

In May 1809, Napoleon’s troops attacked the city of Vienna, and throughout the following summer, the city shook with mortar fire. Ludwig van Beethoven, whose hearing was by this time severely impaired, suffered both the stress of living under attack and the constant painful assaults on his ears. In July Beethoven wrote his publisher, “Since May 4th I have produced very little coherent work, at most a fragment here and there. The whole course of events has in my case affected both body and soul … What a destructive, disorderly life I see and hear around me: nothing but drums, cannons, and human misery in every form.” On the night of May 11, Napoleon, having reached Vienna’s suburbs, launched a relentless barrage of firepower into the city that lasted for hours. Terrified, Beethoven hid in his brother Caspar’s cellar, his head buried in pillows to muffle the inescapable sound of pounding cannons. The physical and mental trauma of living under these conditions prevented Beethoven from working for most of that summer, although he did eventually manage resume composing. By the end of 1809, Beethoven had completed three piano sonatas, including the “Farewell,” along with what is arguably the most popular piano concerto he or anyone has ever written.

It is not clear how the nickname “Emperor” came to be associated with Piano Concerto No. 5. There is an apocryphal story about a French officer who, upon hearing the work performed in Vienna in 1812, exclaimed, “C’est l’Empereur!” If, as many have assumed, the emperor in question refers to Napoleon, Beethoven, who was severely traumatized by Napoleon’s continuous bombardment of Vienna, would certainly have disapproved.

By this point in his career, Beethoven’s penchant for innovation in the opening measures of his concertos had become a signature, and the Fifth is no exception. After an introductory orchestral chord, the piano enters with a cadenza. Cadenzas, unaccompanied virtuoso passages filled with scales and trills created from fragments of thematic material, usually appear at the close of a movement. By opening the concerto with a cadenza full of musical foreshadowing, Beethoven telegraphs the themes and ideas of the opening movement to the listener. The seamlessness of the opening movement gives listeners a sense of inevitability, as if the music could unfold in no other way. This semi-subversive cadenza acts as a subliminal suggestion, planting the basic elements of later themes in our ears without our noticing.

In the Adagio un poco mosso, listeners may recognize the opening notes of Leonard Bernstein’s song “Somewhere” from West Side Story (As Pablo Picasso famously said, “Good artists borrow; great artists steal.”). We can picture Beethoven, surrounded by aural and emotional chaos, escaping from the turmoil of his surroundings into an ethereal sound world. All too soon Beethoven brings us back to reality (i.e., the third movement) with an ingenious device: the whole orchestra drops down a half-step, from B to B-flat, and sustains that note while the piano storms into the Rondo with renewed vigor. Piano and orchestra execute a series of variations on this theme, each more elaborate than the next. The playful, humorous aspects of Beethoven’s personality reveal themselves here in the “false ending,” abrupt key changes, and generally buoyant mood throughout.

Johann Philipp Christian Schulz gave the premiere with pianist Friedrich Schneider and the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig on November 28, 1811 (Beethoven was too deaf to perform in public). In its review, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung reported that “[the audience] could hardly content itself with the ordinary expressions of recognition” in their excitement at hearing Beethoven’s greatest – (and though no one knew it at the time) last – piano concerto.

© Elizabeth Schwartz