Beethoven composed his fifth and final piano concerto shortly after the French occupation of Vienna—a less than ideal situation, as the composer himself described: “What a destructive, unruly life around me! Nothing but drums, cannons, human misery of all sorts!” Battling futilely against his inevitable hearing loss, Beethoven took refuge in his brother Carl Caspar’s basement, burying his head in pillows in a vain attempt to protect his ears. Despite the calamitous circumstances surrounding its conception, the Piano Concerto No. 5 is the culmination—both chronologically and stylistically—of Beethoven’s efforts in the genre. His creativity was unparalleled: he wrote during a burst of activity that included four symphonies, the Piano Concerto No. 4, the opera Fidelio, the Violin Concerto, the three “Razumovsky" String Quartets, and the “Appassionata” and “Waldstein” piano sonatas. But the work was the first that Beethoven was not able to play—by the time of its 1811 premiere, his deafness had effectively ended his career. Perhaps because he could no longer serve as a soloist, the “Emperor” was the last piano concerto Beethoven would ever write. 

Dedicated to Archduke Rudolph, the Piano Concerto No. 5 was described by Alfred Einstein as “the apotheosis of the military concept” in Beethoven’s music. In addition to its generally heroic tone, the work also uses the key of E-flat major, which Beethoven also used in his Symphony No. 3, “Eroica” (1803). Although Beethoven famously dedicated—and then undedicated—the “Eroica” to Napoleon, the “Emperor” Concerto bears no direct association with the dictator. Like many classical symphonies and concertos, the nickname was added after Beethoven's death, perhaps by a publisher as a savvy marketing tool. In January 1812, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung declared the work groundbreaking: “It is without doubt one of the most original, imaginative, most effective but also one of the most difficult of all existing concertos.” After a grand orchestral chord, the “Emperor” opens with improvisatory-sounding, triumphant music for the solo piano, almost as if the pianist is warming up for what comes next. At the point in the movement when the soloist would typically improvise a cadenza, Beethoven includes what amounts to a written-out cadenza—perhaps because he knew that he would not be performing the work. As he admonishes the soloist, “Do not play a cadenza but attack immediately the following.”  After the lyrical Adagio un poco mosso, a joyful, spontaneous-sounding Rondo takes the concerto to a brilliant close.