Program Notes: Beethoven Emperor Concerto

JÖRG WIDMANN 
Con brio 
BORN: June 19, 1973, in Munich, Germany 
WORK COMPOSED: 2008 
WORLD PREMIERE: September 25, 2008, in Munich with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. 

What to Listen For:  

• Hints of famous fragments from Beethoven’s symphonies that are never directly quoted. 

• Extended instrumental techniques such as slapping, scratching and clicking.  

Jörg Widmann is among Germany’s most acclaimed composers of today as well as an in-demand clarinetist and conductor. One of his most frequently performed works, Con brio is an homage to Ludwig van Beethoven. The essence of Beethoven’s rhythmic energy and intensity is scattered throughout the score like an unsolved puzzle, the small flashes of melody and bursts of sound colliding without ever forming a complete picture. Widmann has said that his goal was to create a sense of “fury and rhythmic insistence” reminiscent of Beethoven but without imitation or direct quotation.  

Commissioned by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for a concert that included Beethoven’s Seventh and Eighth symphonies, Con brio (a tempo marking meaning “with vigor”) alludes to musical references within both these symphonies plus inescapable hints from his Fifth and Ninth. A resounding timpani opens the piece along with stark chords from the orchestra sounding like ghostly remnants of the Seventh Symphony’s first measures. Woodwinds breathe through their instruments without sounding a pitch and slap their mouthpieces, while strings scratch and click their bows against the wood. Moments of stillness punctuate the otherwise busy texture, creating tension-filled silences. Sudden changes abound with skittish energy and the work ends in a breathless heap, as if exhausted by its own spectral luster.   

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, “Emperor” 
BORN: December 17, 1770, in Bonn, Germany 
DIED: March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria 
WORK COMPOSED: 1809 
WORLD PREMIERE: January 13, 1811, in Leipzig, Germany 

What to Listen For:  

• Beethoven’s final piano concerto marks the culmination of his “heroic” period with its grandiose themes, experimental style and bold virtuosity.  

• The origin of the nickname “Emperor” is unknown and was not given by Beethoven. Legend persists of a French army officer shouting “C’est l’empereur!” at the premiere. Also likely that the concerto’s English publisher attached the name during printing.  

Beethoven’s monumental “Emperor” Concerto was composed in an era of violence and upheaval caused by the Napoleonic Wars. In May of 1809, Napoleon’s army attacked Vienna and controlled the city for months. Members of the Austrian Imperial Court, including Beethoven’s patron, the Archduke Rudolph, fled to the countryside. Beethoven chose to stay home and took shelter in his brother’s cellar during the worst of the fighting, covering his ears with pillows to protect his already worsening deafness. In a letter to his publisher in Leipzig on July 26, he wrote, “What a destructive, disorderly life I see and hear around me … nothing but drums, cannons, and human misery in every form.” 

Beethoven had initially admired the revolutionary ideals of the young Napoleon and even dedicated his Third Symphony to the military dictator in 1803. When Napoleon crowned himself Emperor and revealed himself as a tyrant, Beethoven angrily scratched out his dedication, calling it instead a sinfonia eroica, or “heroic symphony.” Six years later, when Beethoven was able to escape the occupied city and concentrate on composing, he returned to similar heroic themes and the key of E-flat major (the same key as his Third Symphony) for what would be his final piano concerto.  

The opening of this massive work was wholly original at the time of its writing: three resounding chords from the orchestra, each followed by a cascade of flourishes from the solo piano. The unusually sudden entrance of the piano and its cadenza-like passages surely surprised audiences accustomed to the classical tradition of a lengthy orchestral introduction. When the theme finally enters in the orchestra, it does so with the utmost confidence and buoyancy. In contrast, the piano entrance that follows is a delicate version of the theme. Quietly searching music alternates with heroic fanfare throughout the rest of the movement.  

The second movement begins with a sublime chorale in B major — a remote key from E-flat — and the piano answers with a lyrical fantasia. Two variations of the chorale follow, the first led by the piano and the second by the orchestra, with the soloist providing accompaniment. In a shift of exquisite beauty, the music fades to stillness and then drops down a semitone from B to B-flat, signaling the transition to the third movement. The piano tentatively outlines a new melody in the slow tempo, which then bursts forth to become the rollicking theme of the finale. Full of joyous energy, the theme returns several times with increasing virtuosity. For a striking moment, it appears the work may quietly fade away, but Beethoven dispels that idea with a triumphantly grand conclusion.

RICHARD STRAUSS 
Ein Heldenleben (“A Hero’s Life”), Op. 40, TrV 190 
BORN: June 11, 1864, in Munich, Germany 
DIED: September 8, 1949, in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany 
WORK COMPOSED: 1898 
WORLD PREMIERE: March 3, 1899, in Frankfurt, with the composer conducting.  

What to Listen For:  

• The expansive theme in the horns, representing the composer as hero, and the various ways the theme is transformed throughout the work. 

• The musical depictions of people and events in Strauss’s life, from the intricate solo violin (his wife, Pauline), to the chattering woodwinds (his critics).  

By the time Richard Strauss conducted the premiere of his autobiographical tone poem Ein Heldenleben in 1899 at the age of 34, he had reached celebrity status as a composer and conductor. Having risen through the ranks as a conductor of the Munich Opera, he had recently been hired as principal conductor of the Court Opera in Berlin. His groundbreaking tone poems had taken the idea of Liszt’s earlier symphonic poems and pushed the form to new heights of modernity and orchestral virtuosity. Audiences had embraced him as the leader of a new generation of German composers. He was newly married to the soprano Pauline de Ahna, who sang in his first opera, Guntram, and his son, Franz, had been born two years earlier. Strauss was at a highpoint in his life.  

In such high spirits and with a healthy self-regard, Strauss placed himself at the center of his new work, Ein Heldenleben, or “A Hero’s Life.” Though this inevitably drew criticism, with one review calling it “a monstrous act of egotism,” Strauss remained unfazed, having grown accustomed to causing controversy with his daring music. When he had started work on the piece during the summer of 1898, Strauss had Beethoven’s heroic Third Symphony, the Eroica, at the front of his mind. In a letter to a friend, he wrote with characteristic irony: “Since Beethoven’s Eroica is so unpopular with conductors and thus rarely performed nowadays, I am now, in order to meet what is clearly an urgent need, composing a big tone poem with the title Heldenleben (to be sure, without a funeral march, but still in E-flat major and with very many horns, which are, after all, stamped for heroism).” 

Ein Heldenleben is divided into six sections, each titled by Strauss, that are played without pause. The work begins with “The Hero,” a theme of immense range presented by the horns, representing the fearless main character. The rich orchestration introduces motifs that will be developed later and casts the hero as an exuberant and defiant character. After a brief silence, the woodwinds enter with dissonant chatter, interrupting each other rudely in a scene titled “The Hero’s Adversaries.” For Strauss, these are the music critics who are never satisfied. The hero’s theme appears amidst the commotion, transformed into a lament. A solo violin stops the music in its tracks; this is “The Hero’s Companion,” a love song to Strauss’s wife. Describing her to a friend, Strauss called Pauline “very complicated … a bit of a coquette, never the same twice.” The extended solo transforms into an outpouring of passion from the full orchestra before fading into a tranquil moment of rest. The adversaries are heard from a distance but fail to disturb the lovers.  

Next comes “The Hero’s Battlefield,” with a fanfare by offstage trumpets calling the orchestra to action for a dense and prolonged battle. The hero emerges victorious as the original theme makes a triumphant return. The next section, “The Hero’s Works of Peace,” is the most clearly autobiographical. Strauss quotes directly from his earlier tone poems, weaving snippets of Don Juan, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Death and Transfiguration and Don Quixote into a complex web of overlapping motifs.  

The last section is “The Hero’s Retreat from the World and Fulfillment.” Memories of the battle appear but quickly dissipate with the entrance of the love theme. The solo violin is joined by the horn in a tender dialogue of quiet repose. This was originally how the work ended, but after a few weeks, Strauss revised the score by adding a final chord in the brass and woodwinds. With this finale, the young composer at the height of his career imagines a future where he will look back on a productive and rewarding life. He did just that, living another 50 years past the premiere of this imposing musical self-portrait.  

All notes by Catherine Case © 2023