DISC THREE: Concerto 5 & BEETHOVEN 250th ANNIVERSARY Triple Concerto SERIES BEETHOVEN NCE O PIANO ELIZABETHROYAL PHILHARMONIC SOMBARTORCHESTRA PIERRE VALLET CONDUCTOR Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) PIANO CONCERTOS No. 5 & TRIPLE CONCERTO LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat the problem and finally allow the 1812 premiere Op. 73 ‘Emperor’ (1809) to go ahead with Carl Czerny as soloist. I. Allegro In the event this was probably just as well, II. Adagio un poco mosso if composer Louis Spohr’s recollections of Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat, Op. 73 ‘Emperor’ III. Rondo: Allegro watching the great man in rehearsal the 1 previous year are anything to go by: ‘It was I. Allegro [22.49] Beethoven finished work on this last and most not a treat, for in the first place the piano was imperiously all-embracing of his concertos in badly out of tune, which Beethoven minded 2 II. Adagio un poco mosso [08.30] 1809, just as the walls of Vienna were collapsing little since he could not hear it; and secondly, 3 III. Rondo: Allegro [11.01] under the inexorable might of Napoleon’s on account of his deafness, there was scarcely invading armies. Beethoven was incensed, anything left of the virtuosity of the artist which berating one officer rather uncharitably: ‘If I, as had formerly been so greatly admired. In forte a general, knew as much about strategy as I the passages the poor deaf man pounded on the Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello in C, Op. 56 ‘Triple’ composer know about counterpoint, I’d give you keys till the strings jangled, and in the piano 4 I. Allegro [17.45] something to do!’ Meanwhile, Joseph Haydn, moments, he played so softly that whole groups 5 Beethoven’s one-time tutor, had passed away of notes were omitted, so that the music was II. Largo [04.22] peacefully only a few streets away on May 31. unintelligible unless one could look at the score. I was deeply saddened at so hard a 6 III. Rondo alla polacca [13.08] The old regime was literally disintegrating fate. If it is a great misfortune for anyone to be around him, and Beethoven’s hearing was now deaf, how shall a musician endure it without deteriorating so rapidly that he was forced to giving way to despair? Beethoven’s continual Total timings: [77.50] face the prospect of never performing again in melancholy was no longer a riddle to me.’ public. He was reported to be tying pillows to his head in his cellar against the noise of the It would also seem that Beethoven’s personal battles outside, in order to protect what was circumstances (not to mention levels of hygiene) ELIZABETH SOMBART Piano left of his aural senses. Here he was with the had gone to the board. Just as he was putting DUNCAN RIDDELL Violin | RICHARD HARWOOD Cello concerto that represented the perfect vehicle the finishing touches to the concerto, the Baron ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA for his unique performing style, and he was de Tremont paid the composer a visit in the PIERRE VALLET Conductor simply no longer up to the job. It took Beethoven summer of 1809. His diary entry paints a rather www.signumrecords.com three years to come to terms with the scale of sad picture of the great man: ‘His lodging, I 3 believe, consisted of only two rooms, the first vacillating between its initial presentation Concerto for Piano, Violin and Cello some mysterious composer who had written one having an alcove containing the bed, but in the minor mode in detached strings (the in C Op. 56 ‘Triple’ (1804) nothing else and had the romantic good fortune small and dark, for which reason he made his piano plays it in the recapitulation), and the to die before it came into performance, the very toilet in the second room, or salon. Picture legato warmth of the horns in the major. I. Allegro people who most blame Beethoven for writing to yourself the dirtiest, most disorderly place Having already surprised us with those mini- II. Largo below his full powers would be the first to claim imaginable – blotches of moisture covered cadenzas at the start, Beethoven reduces the III. Rondo alla polacca it as the work of a still greater composer.’ the ceiling; an oldish grand piano, on which traditional cadenza to the briefest of reflections the dust disputed the place with various before leading to a massive final coda, one Composed between 1803 and 1804, the The Triple Concerto was one of the first works pieces of engraved and manuscript music; of the longest in the concerto repertoire. ‘Triple’ Concerto develops upon the essentially to be written for Beethoven’s distinguished under the piano (and I do not exaggerate) good-humoured nature of the first two piano piano pupil, Archduke Rudolph (one of the an unemptied pot de nuit...The chairs, mostly For the slow movement, Beethoven pulls in concertos, as though the angst-ridden Third Emperor’s sons). Rudolph was no mean cane-seated, were covered with plates the musical reins to create a magical oasis of had never been composed. Yet it is no less pianist himself, as is shown by the fact that bearing the remains of last night’s supper.’ peace and tranquillity, introduced by muted radical in its departure from Classical norms, he not only received the dedication of the orchestral strings. There follow two main if less dramatically signalled. By subjecting ‘Emperor’ Concerto – he could also play it. For The concerto’s nickname ‘Emperor’ is current variations on this opening theme, the second his materials to various forms of temporal reasons that have never been satisfactorily only in English-speaking countries and seems an enchanting version for woodwind with piano expansionism, Beethoven was moving towards explained, the dedication of the Triple Concerto to derive from a remark made by the British accompaniment. Beethoven leads us directly a new period of macrocosmic expression, went to another supportive member of the piano maker J. B. Cramer, in which he described into the finale with a halting version from the as is borne out by the first two ‘Razumovsky’ aristocracy, Prince Joseph Lobkowitz. this blazing masterpiece as the ‘emperor soloist of the main rondo theme to come, before String Quartets and the ‘Archduke’ Piano Trio. among concertos’. Ironically, it is the work’s all- it charges away in all-conquering mood. Fascinatingly, he chose not to expand his The exact date of the first performance, conquering spirit and unquenchable reserves of thematic material, but rather pass his ideas presumably given by the Archduke’s private spiritual as well as physical energy that led the Right to the end Beethoven remains around in a dazzling array of different musical orchestra (for whom the work was originally notoriously conservative Viennese audiences of unconventional. There is no traditional cadenza, contexts and keys, thereby creating a template intended) has gone unrecorded. Playing the time to complain that Beethoven had ‘aimed and then the orchestra falls gradually silent for the Romantic generation that followed. alongside Rudolph on this occasion was violinist beyond the comprehension of the common save for the timpani gently murmuring the Anton Seidler and acclaimed cellist Anton Kraft, man’. However, it is now generally recognised as rhythm of the main theme. Quite out of the Yet despite its interest for Beethoven scholars who had led the cellos in Haydn’s orchestra one of his seminal masterpieces in any genre. blue, the piano suddenly re-emerges with a and its vital impact on the music of the next at Esterházy. It would seem that Beethoven stream of blistering octave unisons up and hundred years or so, the Triple’s Concerto’s admired Kraft’s playing a great deal as he Whereas the Fourth Concerto opens with the down the length of the piano, leading to a lack of obvious dramatic muscle from this most gave him the lion’s share of the spotlight, most piano gently announcing the main material, final brief orchestral flourish. With nearly 20 expressively fervent of composers has led notably in the slow movement. The cello is the the ‘Emperor’ announces itself with an years of life remaining to him, but with his to its comparative neglect. The great English first soloist to enter in all three movements imposing series of virtuoso flourishes, before concertising days at an end, Beethoven’s musicologist Donald Francis Tovey typically and also plays the little unaccompanied the concerto proper has even got underway. love-affair with the concerto was over. had his finger on the pulse when he suggested bridge passage that leads into the finale. The second subject is strangely unsettling, that if the work ‘were not by Beethoven, but by 4 5 The opening Allegro begins quietly in the ELIZABETH SOMBART cellos and basses, in complete opposition to the customary call-to-arms – interestingly, of Born in Strasbourg, music recitals, she has Beethoven’s seven mature concertos, only the Elizabeth Sombart performed concertos Second and Fifth for piano open imposingly. started studying the with L’Orchestre National This builds into a gradual crescendo based on piano at the age of de Lille and the Royal a sequentially repeated idea characterised by a seven. She entered Philharmonic Orchestra. dotted rhythm. This is then subtly transformed the conservatoire of to become the second subject, announced her home town and From a young age, initially by the orchestral violins. It would have gave her first public Elizabeth has sought to challenged even a composer of Beethoven’s performance at eleven.