Ludwig van Beethoven completed his fifth and final piano concerto during the miserable summer of 1809, when Napoleon’s army occupied Vienna for the second time in four years. By the time of the premiere two years later, Beethoven’s hearing had deteriorated so much that he could not perform the concerto himself. Having filled the void left by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s death, Beethoven’s long run as the leading pianist-composer in Vienna had officially come to an end.
The Piano Concerto No. 5 is in many ways a sibling to the earlier “Eroica” Symphony No. 3, also in the key of E-flat. In the case of the concerto, Beethoven had no part in the nickname — “Emperor” came later from an English publisher — but both works share a monumental posture and a triumphant spirit.
To begin the concerto, the orchestra proclaims the home key with a single chord, and the piano leaps in with a virtuosic cadenza. The ensemble holds back its traditional exposition until the pianist completes three of these fanciful solo flights, the last connecting directly to the start of the movement’s primary theme. It is a remarkable structure for a concerto, with an assurance of victory, as it were, before the battle lines have been drawn.
The slow movement enters in the luminous and unexpected key of B-major with a simple theme, first stated as a chorale for muted strings. To bridge the distance back to the home key of E-flat, the finale pivots effortlessly on a single held note that relaxes down a half-step, setting up the piano’s propulsive entrance.
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