Program Notes: Beethoven & Bruckner

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 
BORN: December 16, 1770, in Bonn, Germany 
DIED: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria 
WORK COMPOSED: 1800 
WORLD PREMIERE: April 5, 1803, in Vienna. Beethoven performed the solo part and conducted from the keyboard. 

In 1799, Ludwig van Beethoven attended a performance of Mozart’s great C Minor Piano Concerto, K. 491, at a concert given in the ballroom at Vienna’s Augarten Park. His companion that day was another pianist and composer, Johann Cramer, and as the concerto drew to a close, Beethoven was heard to exclaim: “Cramer, Cramer! We shall never do anything like that!” 

Despite this despairing remark, the formidable example of Mozart never deterred Beethoven. Rather, it provided a challenge, a standard to be matched and, where possible, surpassed. It is not surprising, therefore, that the following year saw Beethoven produce a concerto in the same key and expressing much the same turbulent spirit as the one that had so moved him in the Augarten.

Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto partakes of many of the traits that have made his music so enduringly popular. It is dramatic and energetic in its outer movements, ethereally beautiful in its central slow movement. And the interaction between soloist and orchestra is lively and never routine. 

Composed in 1800, this work occupies an intermediate position in style and chronology among the composer’s five concertos featuring the piano. Its formal outline resembles the Classical model followed so closely in Beethoven’s First and Second piano concertos. The opening movement, for instance, begins straight off with an orchestral exposition of the themes without benefit of the novel introductions by the soloist we find in the composer’s Fourth and Fifth piano concertos (as well as in the concertos of most 19th-century composers, who would take their cues from Beethoven in this and so many other matters).  

Yet there are unmistakable signs of the bold departures that would mark Beethoven’s later works for piano and orchestra. The scale here is larger than that of any 18th-century concerto. Distant harmonic relationships, which were increasingly fascinating to the composer at the time, are skillfully exploited. And the development of the thematic material is accomplished with a thoroughness typical of Beethoven’s mature style. 

The long first movement unfolds under the pervasive influence of C-minor, a key Beethoven associated with dark, desperate struggle. The principal theme is actually forged from two dramatically opposed ideas: in the first four measures, the strings present a rather brusque and ominous motif that, after being echoed a step higher by the winds, is followed at once by a more lyrical and impassioned phrase. The coexistence of such diverse and powerful elements, which occurs throughout the opening movement, accounts for much of the energy and tension Beethoven achieves here. Additional thematic material presented by the orchestra and the soloist enriches the drama. 

The ensuing Largo unfolds in the key of E-major, a traditionally serene tonality quite remote from the first movement’s turbulent C-minor. Following the stormy outbursts of the first movement, the second movement’s almost religious tranquility is all the more effective. 

The closing Rondo returns us to C-minor, but not to the dramatic struggles of the first movement. Rather, its initial theme sounds lively and somewhat in the “Turkish” manner Viennese composers used for additional color. Between episodes of more sunny music, Beethoven develops this melody with his characteristic inventive flair. It forms the subject for a striking contrapuntal passage and later, transformed to C-major, launches the rollicking coda that brings the movement, and the concerto, to a close. 

Paul Schiavo © 2016, revised 2025 

ANTON BRUCKNER  
Symphony No. 4 in E-flat Major, “Romantic” 
BORN: September 4, 1824, in Ansfelden, near Linz, Austria 
DIED: October 11, 1896, in Vienna, Austria 
WORK COMPOSED: 1874, revised 1878–80 
WORLD PREMIERE: February 20, 1881, in Vienna, with Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Society Orchestra. 

Anton Bruckner’s life and music present an intriguing set of contradictions. In all appearances, the composer cut a figure far removed from the 19th-century ideal of the artist as Romantic hero. A humble man of humble origins and means, Bruckner passed the initial part of his life in a small village in Upper Austria. His first ambition was to become a schoolmaster, and he spent the early part of his career as a provincial teacher and church organist. Modest and self-effacing, diffident toward anyone who might be considered a superior, he spoke and dressed plainly, and his personal habits, like his religious and political views, were unfashionably conservative. Socially awkward, he never married; the closest he seems to have come to any romantic liaison were several misconceived marriage proposals tendered to girls far too young for him. 

Even his approach to music seems, in certain respects, staid and cautious, reflecting an apparent insecurity that permeated many spheres of his life. Bruckner continued formal studies of harmony, fugue and musical form until he was nearly 40, apparently unable to trust in the sufficiency of his already plentiful training. As a result, his first important compositions date from his middle age, a period when most composers have already established their reputations. Interestingly, however, the personality revealed in those works was entirely unlike the one their author showed the world. 

Bruckner’s alter ego, the other side of his character, emerges especially in his symphonies. These are, without exception, compositions of heroic stature, a quality one would hardly predict from their author’s otherwise pedantic, self-critical and retiring disposition. Their imposing scale, the bold themes from which they are built, the ambitious development of those themes and their powerful orchestration create a sense of grandeur and drama equaled by few works of their kind. It was these qualities that moved Hugo Wolf, a perceptive critic as well as an important composer, to declare that “the symphonies of Bruckner are the most important symphonic creations that have been written since Beethoven.” 

Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony is widely considered his first unqualified masterpiece. The composer began writing it early in 1874, only two days after completing his Third Symphony. In that earlier work, Bruckner had handled the intricacies of symphonic form convincingly for the first time, even though the composition’s reliance on themes from Wagner’s operas — it was dedicated to Wagner and intended as an homage to him — compromised its originality. Still, Bruckner now began the Fourth Symphony fully confident of his abilities, and his assurance was reflected in the work’s robust E-flat harmonies and extroverted character. Significantly, this was the composer’s first symphony written in a major key. 

Bruckner subtitled the work “Romantic,” a designation that should be understood in a general rather than specific sense. Though pressed to do so, the composer never described his music in terms of any literary or dramatic scenario, and he even disavowed such explanations by his well-intentioned but overly imaginative supporters. 

The “Romantic” Symphony begins with a typically Brucknerian opening: a hushed string tremolo accompanying a “motto” theme, a brief figure that recurs at several points in the symphony, sounded by the horn. (The precedent for this magical beginning, which builds from silence to a ringing annunciation of the first movement’s principal theme, is clearly the beginning of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.) The main theme of the first movement, which emerges from the motto, introduces a characteristic rhythmic figure of duplet followed by triplet (two notes, then three, per beat), one so much favored by the composer that it has become known as the “Bruckner rhythm.” In contrast to this heroic material, the second theme, heard first in the strings, is lithe and dance-like. Bruckner develops both melodies at length, and the movement ends with a powerful recollection of the “motto.” 

The ensuing Andante opens with a passage that suggests a funeral march, the cellos intoning a mournful melody over a solemn accompaniment in the violins. While the movement is concerned primarily with this theme, Bruckner still achieves a wide range of expression. In its long wanderings, the music appears by turns joyful, devout and vigorous.   

The next movement was not part of Bruckner’s original conception; he added it in 1878 during an extensive revision of the symphony. This third chapter of the symphony belongs to a venerable species of composition, the hunting scherzo, and features thrilling brass fanfares.   

Like the first and third movements, the Finale begins with a soft rustling of strings followed by an arresting horn call. Again, there is a dramatic increase of sonority and tension during the introduction, which culminates in a return of the first movement’s motto theme. We then hear the Finale’s own principal melodies, stated by the strings and woodwinds respectively. To these Bruckner adds recollections of the Scherzo as the symphony builds to its majestic conclusion. 

Paul Schiavo © 2013, revised 2025