Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Programme Notes Online

Sunday Afternoon Classics Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto Sunday 3 June 2018 2.30pm

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770-1827) Overture, Egmont, Op.84

It’s no use pretending that Germany’s greatest writer is well known in this country. It’s our loss – but even if Goethe’s 1787 tragedy Egmont is hardly familiar on the British stage, there’s no doubt what Beethoven thought of it. Count Egmont was a leader of the Netherlands’ struggle for freedom from Spanish rule. Captured and executed in Brussels in 1588, he became a martyr of the liberation movement. Goethe turned the dry facts into a visionary drama of courage and freedom – so it’s no surprise that Beethoven, the most heroic and revolutionary artist of his age, was swept away by it. In June 1810 he completed a suite of incidental music for the play, and sent a deluxe edition of it to Goethe at his own expense: “the music to Egmont, your glorious Egmont, which I have set to music as powerful as my emotions on reading it”.

There’s no arguing with that. In the Overture, Beethoven takes two standard classical procedures – sonata-form, and the transformation of minor key (tragic) to major key (optimistic) music – and turns them into the stuff of heroic musical drama. The grim introduction immediately paints a scene of oppression – and Beethoven gives it the rhythm of a sarabande, a distinctively Spanish dance. Clear enough! A passionate, tragic melody races in on the cellos, and the revolutionary struggle is underway. There are glimpses of light – perhaps Egmont’s beloved Clärchen – and the rhythmic stamp of that Spanish jackboot. And finally Egmont is captured and executed; a powerful cry on the violins,

cut off in mid-flow. But that’s not the end. Four woodwind chords start to glow in the silence, the strings begin to race, and with a sudden, thrilling rush, trumpets ring out in a blazing “Symphony of Victory” as the last words of Goethe’s hero inspire Beethoven to one of the most stirring finishes even he ever wrote: “Your enemies surround you – friends, take courage! Behind you are your parents, wives, children. Protect them! And to save all that you hold most dear, fall joyfully, as I give you the example!”

Richard Bratby © 2018

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No.4 in G major, Op.58

Allegro moderato / Moderately fast Andante con moto / At a walking pace, with movement Rondo: vivace / Rondo: lively

The onset of Beethoven’s deafness was slow and gradual, but by around 1801 he realised the worst and unburdened himself to one of his oldest friends, Franz Wegeler. “If I had any other profession,” he wrote, “it would be easier, but in my profession it is a terrible handicap. As for my enemies, what would they say?” He despaired more deeply about the effect his deafness was having on his social life than how it was affecting his life as a musician.

Despite this severe and irreversible handicap, the next few years proved to be among his most productive. He had considered leaving Vienna, but in 1804 chose to stay. A factor in this decision was probably the entry into his life of Josephine von Brunswick, a young widow with whom he had a turbulent relationship until 1807. Some sources claim that his real love was for her sister Therese. It has been suggested that Josephine was the model for Leonora, the heroine of his only opera, Fidelio, which he completed in 1805.

In 1805, at around the time that he was working on the ‘Appassionata’ Sonata and the three ‘Razumovsky’ Quartets, Beethoven began sketching his Fourth Piano Concerto. On completing the work the following year he dedicated it to his patron, pupil and friend, Archduke Rudolph of Austria. The concerto was first performed in 1807 at a private concert at Prince Lobkowitz’s palace. Beethoven, the soloist and conductor on this occasion, is reputed to have played “very impulsively and at a tremendous pace”.

Of all Beethoven’s five piano concertos, the Fourth is the most introspective and gentle. From the outset the relationship between the soloist and the orchestra is unusually intimate. Unlike the Fifth ‘Emperor’ Piano Concerto and many of his other works, the Fourth does not seek to dominate by force. Rather, the drama is on a small scale. The care Beethoven put into this work is immediately apparent – it is a profoundly appealing concerto of perfect proportions.

First movement Beethoven’s opening gambit is unusual and arresting: the piano enters alone with a five-bar phrase of restrained elegance. The orchestra answers in equally subdued tones, before launching into a development of the initial statement and a presentation of new ideas. Before Mendelssohn’s innovations in the 1830s, a concerto would almost invariably start with a long passage for the full orchestra, during which the main thematic ideas were presented. Apart from Beethoven, only Mozart occasionally dared to stray from this norm before Mendelssohn’s time.

The tranquil mood of the opening exchange persists throughout the movement, and later reprises of this theme possess an important structural significance. The piano needs no grand statement for its next main entry, and slips unobtrusively into the orchestral texture. In the gracious and varied themes that follow there seems to be more co-operation than competition between

soloist and orchestra. Beethoven himself provided two cadenzas for this movement.

Second movement In contrast, the Andante exploits to the full the opposition of piano and strings. Set in the form of a dialogue, the two protagonists possess characters that could not be more strongly differentiated. In response to the gruff and demanding enquiry of the strings, given in unison, the piano gives a tender, pleading answer. As this exchange continues, the grumblings of the strings begin to subside in volume and fervour. By the end of the movement the piano has clearly charmed the strings into cowed submission.

Liszt was possibly the first to attach a programme to this movement, supposedly an episode from the Orpheus myth. While the piano represents Orpheus, the strings are the Furies, the wild beasts who guard the gates of hell. Orpheus (the piano) calms and tames them with his lyre in order to gain admission to the underworld. Whether or not this episode was in Beethoven’s mind as he was composing, it certainly fits the music.

Third movement Trumpets and timpani make their first appearance in the Vivace finale, imparting to it a good-natured robustness. Like all Beethoven’s concerto finales it is cast in the form of a rondo, in which a main theme is given in alternation with various contrasting ideas. In the final section there is an opportunity for another cadenza, but Beethoven was clear that he wanted no extended flights of fantasy – he gave the soloist the characteristically terse direction “must be short”.

Ian Stephens © 2018

PIOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893) Symphony No.5 in E minor, Op.64

Andante – allegro con anima / At a walking pace – fast, animatedly

Andante cantabile, con alcuna licenza / At a walking pace, in a singing style, with some freedom Valse: allegro moderato / Waltz: moderately fast Andante maestoso – allegro vivace / At a majestic walking pace – fast, lively

When Tchaikovsky showed his Fifth Symphony to Taneyev, the younger composer was typically forthright in pointing out what he felt to be its faults. Unfortunately, the hypersensitive Tchaikovsky overreacted and, in red pencil, wrote ‘Awful muck’ across the score. Still not satisfied with his punishment, he then tore the score in two, hurled it on the floor and stormed out of the room. “Piotr Ilyich takes everything to heart,” said the unflustered Taneyev. “After all, he himself asked me to give my opinion …”

“Awful muck” or not, with its gorgeous lyricism and powerful dramatic sweep, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth remains beloved of concert audiences around the globe. It was completed in 1888 and first performed in St Petersburg under the baton of the composer himself. Like his Fourth Symphony, the work explores Tchaikovsky’s obsession with the theme of Fate. Throughout the symphony, therefore, a Fate motif reappears providing the listener with a recurring reference point and giving the work its overall structural unity.

First movement The symphony opens with a lengthy slow introduction featuring a funereal clarinet solo. According to Tchaikovsky this music evokes “Total submission before Fate”. With the onset of the Allegro con anima the Fate motif appears in a different, more dance-like guise, gradually building in intensity and representing “Murmurs, doubts, laments”. Following this no fewer than four sumptuous themes are introduced, the last of which is a soaring violin melody as Tchaikovsky considers whether to cast himself “into the embrace of faith”. After a short section in which all the preceding music is developed, the Fate theme creeps back in,

now in the bassoons. The material is repeated before a dark coda sinks into the depths of despair. Second movement Over hushed string chords a horn sings the most exquisite and heart-rending of melodies before engaging in intimate dialogue with the clarinet. The oboe then introduces a more animated second theme; massed cellos warmly restate the horn melody and the strings give an expansive rendition of the oboe tune. Amidst this wealth of glorious melody, however, a different tone is struck by the intrusion of the Fate motif which enters fortissimo in the trumpets and later returns even more defiantly. Following various re-workings of its luscious melodic material the movement winds down to the most serene of endings. Third movement After the draining emotional intensity of the first two movements, this charming and untroubled waltz comes as welcome relief. The contrasting middle section features chattering runs in the strings and woodwind, echoes of which remain when the waltz eventually returns. During a buoyant little coda, the Fate motif tries to re-establish itself but a more cheery temper now prevails. Fourth movement The slow introduction to the finale is a majestic statement of the Fate motif, now transformed into something altogether more positive in outlook. In the main body of the movement the new mood is celebrated with abandon in music struggling to contain its sheer energy and self-assurance. On two occasions the Fate theme blasts out exultantly and the movement builds to a powerful false ending (not a good place to applaud!). Now the Fate motif is triumphantly restated – all vestiges of doubt and anxiety are gone – and the final presto rounds things off with breathtaking panache and brio. The journey from darkness to light is complete. Anthony Bateman © 2018