Volume 46, Number 11 · June 24, 1999
Beethoven and the Big Change
By Joseph Kerman
Beethoven's Concertos: History, Style, Performance
by Leon Plantinga
Norton, 403 pp., $49.95
Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2, Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 4, Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor," and Choral Fantasy Choir
fortepiano Robert Levin. the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, and the Monteverdi, directed by John Eliot Gardiner
Deutsche Grammophon Archiv, three CDs, $17.99 each
In 1791 a listing was made of the several dozen musicians in the employ of the episcopal court of Bonn. 'Herr Ludwig van Beethoven plays clavier concertos' is the extent of the entry on the young man who was to become Bonn's and perhaps Germany's most celebrated citizen. At the age of twenty his output included three concertos for piano (one arranged from a violin concerto, as was not uncommon at the time), as well as a concerto for piano with two other instruments, and possibly a fourth piano concerto, if some extant early sketches were ever completed. A young pianist-virtuoso-composer needed concertos to make his way—indeed, the encounter between the concerto's solo instrument and orchestra can stand as a metaphor for the freelance musician and his support system of audience and patrons. Before Beethoven found himself as a symphonist, the concerto was the public genre that marked the stages of his march to success and, as the nineteenth century saw it, greatness.
Review, 4435 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |