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Notes on the Program by Dr. Richard E. Rodda

Concerto No. 4 for Piano and Orchestra in G Major, Opus 58
Ludwig van Beethoven
(b. Bonn, 1770; d. Vienna, 1827)

Composed in 1804-1806.
Premiered on March 5, 1807 in Vienna, with the composer as soloist.
Instrumentation: flute, pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets, timpani and strings.
Duration: approximately 32 minutes.

The Napoleonic juggernaut twice overran the city of Vienna. The first occupation began on November 13, 1805, less than a month after the Austrian armies had been soundly trounced by the French legions at the Battle of Ulm on October 20th. Though the entry into Vienna was peaceful, the Viennese had to pay dearly for the earlier defeat in punishing taxes, restricted freedoms and inadequate food supplies. On December 28th, following Napoleon’s fearsome victory at Austerlitz that forced the Austrian government into capitulation, the Little General left Vienna. He returned in May 1809, this time with cannon and cavalry sufficient to subdue the city by force, creating conditions that were worse than those during the previous occupation. As part of his booty and in an attempt to ally the royal houses of France and Austria, Napoleon married Marie Louise, the eighteen-year-old daughter of Austrian Emperor Franz. She became the successor to his first wife, Josephine, whom he divorced because she was unable to bear a child. It was to be five years — 1814 — before the Corsican was finally defeated and Emperor Franz returned to Vienna, riding triumphantly through the streets of the city on a huge, white Lippizaner.

Such soul-troubling times would seem to be antithetical to the production of great art, yet for Beethoven, that ferocious libertarian, those years were the most productive of his life. Hardly had he begun one work before another appeared on his desk, and his friends recalled that he labored on several scores simultaneously during this period. Sketches for many of the works appear intertwined in his notebooks, and an exact chronology for most of the works from 1805 to 1810 is impossible. So close were the dates of completion of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, for example, that their numbers were reversed when they were given their premieres on the same giant concert as the Fourth Concerto. Between Fidelio, which was in its last week of rehearsal when Napoleon entered Vienna in 1805, and the music for Egmont, finished shortly after the second invasion, Beethoven composed the following major works: the Sonata, Op. 57 (“Appassionata”); the Violin Concerto; the Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos; the three Quartets of Op. 59; the Leonore Overture No. 3; the Coriolan Overture; the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies; two Piano Trios (Op. 70); the Sonata, Op. 81a (“Les Adieux”); and many smaller songs, chamber works, and piano compositions. It is a stunning record of accomplishment virtually unmatched in the entire history of music.

The Fourth Concerto was one of the projects of the Napoleonic years, and it seems to have been composed simultaneously with the Fifth Symphony. The two are even related in their use of a basic rhythmic motive — three short notes followed by an accented note — and may have germinated from the same conceptual seed, though with vastly different results. While almost nothing is known of the composition of the Concerto, its early performance history is well documented. Beethoven first played it “before a very select audience which had subscribed considerable amounts for the benefit of the author,” according to one contemporary report. The event took place at the Viennese palace of Prince Lobkowitz, who returned to the city shortly after Napoleon evacuated in 1805. He promoted two private concerts in March 1806 of music exclusively by Beethoven, and presented the composer with all the proceeds, a sure refutation of the myth that Beethoven was not appreciated in his own time. An account of the elegant event in the appropriately titled Journal des Luxus was typical of many reviews Beethoven received during his life. The writer noted his “wealth of ideas, bold originality, and abundance of power, the special merits of his muse, which were clearly present in these concerts. But some hearers blamed the neglect of a noble simplicity and a too fertile profusion of ideas, which, because of their quantity, are not always sufficiently fused and elaborated; hence their effect is frequently that of an unpolished diamond.”

Because opportunities for public concerts were so few during those troubled times, Beethoven was unable to perform the Concerto in public until December 22, 1808, more than two years after its private premiere. By that time he had finished enough works not yet heard in public (including the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Choral Fantasia, and three movements from the Mass in C major) that the concert, given in the frigid Theater-an-der-Wien, lasted four hours. Reports on the quality of Beethoven’s playing at the time differed. J.F. Reichardt wrote, “He truly sang on his instrument with a profound feeling of melancholy that pervaded me, too.” The composer and violinist Ludwig Spohr, however, commented, “It was by no means an enjoyment [to hear him], for, in the first place, the piano was woefully out of tune, which, however, troubled Beethoven little for he could hear nothing of it; and, secondly, of the former so-much-admired excellence of the virtuoso scarcely anything was left, in consequence of his total deafness.... I felt moved with the deepest sorrow at so hard a destiny.” The Fourth Concerto was consistently neglected in the years following its creation in favor of the Third and Fifth Concertos. After Beethoven’s two performances, it was not heard again until Felix Mendelssohn played and conducted the work with his Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on November 3, 1836. Robert Schumann, who was at that revival, wrote, “I have received a pleasure from it such as I have never enjoyed, and I sat in my place without moving a muscle or even breathing — afraid of making the least noise.”

Of the nature of the Fourth Concerto, Milton Cross wrote, “[Here] the piano concerto once and for all shakes itself loose from the 18th century. Virtuosity no longer concerns Beethoven at all; his artistic aim here, as in his symphonies and quartets, is the expression of deeply poetic and introspective thoughts.” The mood is established immediately at the outset of the work by a hushed, prefatory phrase for the soloist. The form of the movement, vast yet intimate, begins to unfold with the ensuing orchestral introduction, which presents the rich thematic material: the pregnant main theme, with its small intervals and repeated notes; the secondary themes — a melancholy strain with an arch shape and a grand melody with wide leaps; and a closing theme of descending scales. The soloist re-enters to enrich the themes with elaborate figurations. The central development section is haunted by the rhythmic figuration of the main theme (three short notes and an accented note). The recapitulation returns the themes, and allows an opportunity for a cadenza (Beethoven composed two for this movement) before the coda, a series of glistening scales and chords that bring the movement to a joyous close.

The second movement, “one of the most original and imaginative things that ever fell from the pen of Beethoven or any other musician,” according to Sir George Grove, starkly opposes two musical forces — the stern, unison summons of the strings and the gentle, touching replies of the piano. Franz Liszt compared this music to Orpheus taming the Furies, and the simile is warranted, since both Liszt and Beethoven traced their visions to the magnificent scene in Gluck’s Orfeo where Orpheus’ music charms the very fiends of Hell. In the Concerto, the strings are eventually subdued by the entreaties of the piano, which then gives forth a wistful little song filled with quivering trills. After only the briefest pause, a high-spirited and long-limbed rondo-finale is launched by the strings to bring this Concerto, one of Beethoven’s greatest compositions, to a stirring close.

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68
Johannes Brahms
(b. Hamburg, 1833; d. Vienna, 1897)

Composed in 1855-1876.
Premiered on November 4, 1876 in Karlsruhe, conducted by Felix Otto Dessoff.
Instrumentation: pairs of woodwinds, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings.
Duration: approximately 44 minutes.

Brahms, while not as breathtakingly precocious as Mozart, Mendelssohn or Schubert, got a reasonably early start on his musical career: he had produced several piano works (including two large sonatas) and a goodly number of songs by the age of nineteen. In 1853, when Brahms was only twenty, Robert Schumann wrote an article for the widely distributed Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, his first contribution to that journal in a decade, hailing Brahms as the savior of German music, the rightful heir to the mantle of Beethoven. Brahms was extremely proud of Schumann’s advocacy and he displayed the journal with great joy to his friends and family when he returned to his humble Hamburg neighborhood after visiting Schumann in Düsseldorf, but there was the other side of Schumann’s assessment as well, that which placed an immense burden on Brahms’ shoulders.

Brahms was acutely aware of the deeply rooted traditions of German music extending back not just to Beethoven, but even beyond him to Bach and Schütz and Lassus. His knowledge of Bach was so thorough, for example, that he was asked to join the editorial board of the first complete edition of the works of that Baroque master. He knew that, having been heralded by Schumann, his compositions, especially a symphony, would have to measure up to the standards set by his forebears. At first he doubted that he was even able to write a symphony, feeling that Beethoven had nearly expended all the potential of that form, leaving nothing for future generations. “You have no idea,” Brahms lamented, “how it feels to hear behind you the tramp of a giant like Beethoven.”

Encouraged by Schumann to undertake a symphony (“If one only makes the beginning, then the end comes of itself,” he cajoled), Brahms made some attempts in 1854, but was unsatisfied with the symphonic potential of the sketches, and diverted them into the First Piano Concerto and the German Requiem. He began again a year later, perhaps influenced by a performance of Schumann’s Manfred, and set down a first movement, but this music he kept to himself, and even his closest friends knew of no more than the existence of the manuscript. Seven years passed before he sent this movement to Clara, Schumann’s widow, to seek her opinion. With only a few reservations, she was pleased with this C minor sketch, and encouraged Brahms to hurry on and finish the rest so that it could be performed. Brahms, however, was not to be rushed. Eager inquiries from conductors in 1863, 1864 and 1866 went unanswered. It was not until 1870 that he hinted about any progress at all beyond the first movement.

The success of the superb Haydn Variations for orchestra of 1873 seemed to convince Brahms that he could complete his initial symphony, and in the summer of 1874 he began two years of labor — revising, correcting, perfecting — before he signed and dated the score of the First Symphony in September 1876. It is a serious and important essay (“Composing a symphony is no laughing matter,” according to Brahms), one which revitalized the symphonic sonata form of Beethoven and combined it with the full contrapuntal resources of Bach, a worthy successor to the traditions Brahms revered. In the century since its premiere, it has become the most performed of Brahms’ symphonies and one of the most cherished pieces in the orchestral literature.

The success and popularity of the First Symphony are richly deserved. It is a work of supreme technical accomplishment and profound emotion, of elaborate counterpoint and beautiful melody. Even to those who know its progress intimately, it reveals new marvels upon each hearing. The first movement begins with a slow introduction in 6/8 meter energized by the heart-beats of the timpani supporting the full orchestra. The violins announce the upward-bounding main theme in the faster tempo that launches a magnificent, seamless sonata form. The second movement starts with a placid, melancholy song led by the violins. After a mildly syncopated middle section, the bittersweet melody returns in a splendid scoring for oboe, horn and solo violin. The brief third movement, with its prevailing woodwind colors, is reminiscent of the pastoral serenity of Brahms’ earlier Serenades.

The finale begins with an extended slow introduction based on several pregnant thematic ideas. The first, high in the violins, is a minor-mode transformation of what will become the main theme of the finale, but here broken off by an agitated pizzicato passage. A tense section of rushing scales is halted by a timpani roll leading to the call of the solo horn, a melody originally for Alphorn that Brahms collected while on vacation in Switzerland. The introduction concludes with a noble chorale intoned by trombones and bassoons, the former having been held in reserve throughout the entire Symphony just for this moment. The finale proper begins with a new tempo and one of the most famous themes in the repertory, a stirring hymn-like melody that resembles the finale of Beethoven’s “Choral” Symphony. (When a friend pointed out this affinity to Brahms he shot back, “Any fool can see that!”) The movement progresses in sonata form, but without a development section. The work closes with a majestic coda in the brilliant key of C major featuring the trombone chorale of the introduction in its full splendor.

Of Brahms’ symphonies, and this one in particular, Lawrence Gilman wrote, “The essential fact to remember and to celebrate about Brahms is that he possessed not only the mechanisms of the grand style, but that he was able to exert it as a vehicle for ideas of authentic greatness, and he achieved this miracle with a continence, a sense of balance and proportion, an instinct for the larger contours as well as the finer adjustments of musical design, that were almost unerring.”

©2011 Dr. Richard E. Rodda