ESCHENBACH AND HIS RISING STARS Sunday, July 27 * 7pm CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1 Bernstein: Symphony No. 1 ("Jeremiah") Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3
First performed on April 5, 1803, in Vienna, with the composer as soloist. The score calls for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, timpani, strings and solo piano.
Solo concertos served a dual purpose during the 18th and 19th centuries: they were both tailor-made vehicles for the composer/performer's virtuosity, and tangible evidence of the musician's mastery over complex, standardized instrumental forms. Beethoven's solo performances in Vienna during the mid-1790s garnered enthusiastic praise from audiences of nobility and musicians. His initial reputation as a peerless improviser was later equaled by his newly honed skills as a composer. Two early piano concertos (published in reverse chronological order) originated in this developmental period: Beethoven wrote No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 19, between 1793-95; and No. 1 in C major, Op. 15, in 1795.
Five or more years passed before Beethoven completed a successor, the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 37. His manuscript bears the date "1800," but apparently the music still was not fully notated by the April 5, 1803, premiere on an all-Beethoven program. The occasion for this mammoth concert was the unveiling of his cantata, Christus am Oelberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives) for chorus, soloists and orchestra. His first two symphonies, possibly selections for solo voice and the Concerto No. 3 filled out the program. Only Symphony No. 1 had been heard previously in public.
Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried remembered his frustration as page-turner trying to follow Beethoven's sparse sketched part. "In the playing of the concerto movements he asked me to turn pages for him; but--heaven help me!--that was easier said than done. I saw almost nothing but empty leaves; at the most on one page or the other a few Egyptian hieroglyphs wholly unintelligible to me scribbled down to serve as clues for him, for he played nearly all of the solo part from memory, since, as was so often the case, he had not had time to put it all down on paper. He gave me a secret glance whenever he was at the end of one of the invisible passages and my scarcely concealable anxiety not to miss the decisive moment amused him greatly and he laughed heartily at the jovial supper which we ate afterwards."
Beethoven finally wrote out the complete solo part for a July 19, 1804, performance by his pupil, Ferdinand Ries. The composer also exerted a strong influence over Ries's cadenza preparations. However, during performance Ries reverted to his original ideas, an unexpected turn of events that actually pleased Beethoven. Sometime around 1809, Beethoven fully notated a first-movement cadenza for his friend and pupil, Archduke Rudolph.
Although its premiere left many listeners unimpressed (it seems Beethoven would have benefited from more memory aids than his skeletal part provided!), the Concerto No. 3 marked a significant advance in his compositional technique. Beethoven had completely internalized aesthetic nuances inherent in the Mozartian three-movement Classical concerto. His choice of tonality-C minor-thrust this concerto into a growing list of revolutionary works in that key, the Piano Trio, Op. 1, No. 3, and Piano Sonata, Op. 13 ("Pathétique"), among others. Beethoven would continue this C-minor legacy in the Coriolan Overture, Symphony No. 5 and his final Piano Sonata, Op. 111. Further common ground between the Concerto No. 3 and Symphony No. 5 existed in the Allegro con brio tempo shared by their first movements.
Orchestral strings begin with a haunting, arch-like outlining of a C-minor chord and a short-long rhythmic cadence. Winds echo with a similarly shaped phrase. A broad orchestral line leads to cadential fragments passed between strings and winds. Beethoven restates the opening melody in the new key of E-flat major. Violins and the clarinet introduce a warm contrasting theme. With great force, the opening theme reappears in the full orchestra, followed by a dramatic silence. Rising scale passages propel the piano into the minor-key melody. Solo episodes instill breadth of expression within the already-established sequence of themes. Development, though relatively brief, extracts abundant melodic and rhythmic (short-long) material from the first theme. Principal melodies recur with added interest, as the orchestra and piano exchange phrases. Building dynamic intensity leads to the piano cadenza. Contrary to tradition, the solo instrument continues playing beyond the cadenza.
The Largo's effortless melodiousness belies its unnecessarily awkward rhythmic notation. (Some highly decorative passages require five beams to link together 132nd-notes.) Beethoven's serene piano entrance establishes a lyrical supremacy--simple, direct and absorbing--which the muted strings and winds only enhance in the consequent phrase. The piano introduces a more lavishly embellished melody, then the original theme returns.
Classical rondo finales typically served as lighthearted confections for the audience. Beethoven's last movement, in contrast, contains a prominent conflict between a minor-key refrain and the major-key episodes. The refrain contains internal melodic repetition and a built-in cadenza-like flourish for solo piano. One refrain appears as a small-scale fugue. Tempo increases for the last refrain, which transforms into a joyous dance in C major.
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