Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) with Artur Pizarro - Beethoven Piano Concertos 3, 4 & 5 Studio Master

Beethoven Piano Concertos 3, 4 & 5

When Beethoven wrote a set of three works such as violin sonatas or string quartets he normally gave them strongly contrasting characters. Although his last three piano concertos were not created as a set, but spanned about a decade in their composition, they nevertheless exhibit a similar level of contrast. No.3 is stormy and agitated; No.4 is gentle and lyrical; and No.5 is grand and majestic - so much so that in English-speaking countries it has gained the nickname ‘Emperor'. Thus they could hardly be more different in mood, yet each one in its own way is thoroughly characteristic of the composer.

One of Beethoven's earliest sketches for Piano Concerto No.3 dates from about 1796 and shows him already experimenting with new sonorities, with a prominent motif being allocated to the timpani part - which normally played a merely accompanying role in orchestral music at the time. However, little progress was made on the work until 1800, when it was taken up in preparation for a concert that April. Unfortunately it was not ready in time and Beethoven had to substitute a different concerto (probably No.1). He did not finally complete No.3 until 1803, and at its first performance that year he had to play the piano part largely from memory as he had still not had time to write it out in full. His page-turner at the première, Ignaz von Seyfried, reports of having to turn pages that were largely blank apart from a few hieroglyphs that only Beethoven could read!

Although the first movement is stormy in character it has a beautifully lyrical second subject; Beethoven cunningly transformed this theme almost beyond recognition to form the main theme of the sublime slow movement. This evokes a completely different and more exalted world, in the remote key of E major, with a reduced orchestra and muted strings. The key of C minor returns in the finale, but there is one brief excursion back to E major, as if recalling that exalted world; and the music ends in a blaze of glory, in a triumphant C major.

Piano Concerto No.4 breaks with all previous tradition by beginning with solo piano instead of the usual extended orchestral ritornello. This unexpected opening signals that the relationship between piano and orchestra will be closer than normal; and although the orchestra quickly takes over for its customary ritornello, this does not conclude with the usual cadence but breaks off in mid-phrase, with the piano re-entering quietly in contrast to its dramatic entrance in No.3.

The slow movement is unusually brief, and scored just for strings and piano, which engage in a dramatic dialogue throughout. Initially the strings sound angry, but the gentle pleading of the piano gradually softens them until they die away to a hushed pianissimo. The similarity to the ‘Taming of the Furies' by Orpheus is unmistakable, and has led many to assume that this is what Beethoven was attempting to portray. Yet there is no reference to Orpheus in anything written or said by Beethoven about the movement, and it seems unwise to narrow the music down to a single myth; better, surely, to regard the music as emblematic of all situations where anger is calmed by gentleness - of which Orpheus and the Furies form just one instance.

One factor that makes the first two movements of this concerto particularly tender is the absence of trumpets and drums. In the finale, however, these finally burst in and create a sense of much greater exuberance, although there are still many gentler passages that remind us of the mood of the rest of the work.

Although the concerto was composed mainly in 1806 it had to wait until December 1808 for its public première - at a four hour all-Beethoven concert. On that occasion Beethoven played the concerto very ‘mischievously' according to his pupil Carl Czerny, adding many more notes than were printed, and sketchy indications of these extra notes are found in one of Beethoven's manuscripts. Nevertheless the work has become known, like No.3, in its printed version, with the only addition in both cases being cadenzas that Beethoven composed in 1809 for another of his pupils, Archduke Rudolph.

The success of the 1808 concert may have induced Beethoven to begin another concerto almost immediately, early in 1809. Increasing deafness, however, meant that he was never to play Piano Concerto No.5 in public; and although he began a Sixth Piano Concerto in 1815, he composed only part of the first movement before laying it aside.

In the Fifth, Beethoven again breaks with tradition by introducing the piano very early, but this time to provide ornate decoration to three emphatic orchestral chords before the main theme gets under way. The second subject is heard first in the minor but then reappears transformed in the major, and is later heard sounding like a majestic march. In this form it is accompanied by just two alternating chords, so that the two timpani between them can play the entire bass line (if the music is in the right key). Therefore, as in the Third Piano Concerto, Beethoven gives the timpani an important part to play.

Another feature that recalls the Third Concerto is that the theme of the slow movement is again a disguised version of the second subject of the first movement - that march theme is now transformed into a serene, hymn-like melody. Again, Beethoven uses a remote key - this time B major - and omits the trumpets and timpani. The music eventually modulates back to E flat, with a tentative hint of the theme of the next movement, thus providing a seamless join to the finale. Here the theme is announced by the piano before being taken up by the orchestra. The main bass line for this theme uses only two notes - the same two as in the march theme in the first movement - and so it can again be played in its entirety by the timpani. Even in the final coda the timpani have an important part to play, in an extraordinary passage for just solo piano and timpani, where the latter pick up an accompanying figure that had previously been played only by other instruments. Beethoven's remarkable level of invention, whether of thematic manipulation, key relationships or orchestration, remains in evidence right to the very end.

© Barry Cooper, 2009

16 July 2009
Gramophone
Richard Osborne

It would almost be worth acquiring these two discs for the conducting. Not having heard Mackerras direct these concertos before, I found there was double pleasure to be had from these fresh and inspiring readings. The most pleasing performance is probably that of the Fourth Concerto. In general, though, this is a performance of grace and musicianly charm. Where Pizarro's playing of the first-movement cadenza in the Third Concerto is impossibly mannered, suggesting that without the conductor's shaping hand the performance might end up goodness knows where, his handling of the cadenza in the Fourth Concerto is exceptional.


14 April 2009
BBC Music Magazine
Michael Tanner
4 Stars

These performances, made in Perth (Scotland) Town Hall last November, strike me as attractive but under-characterised. Take the opening movement of the Third Concerto, one of Beethoven's great C minor movements. It is marked ‘Allegro con brio', but with its obvious indebtedness to Mozart's concerto in the same key, K491, it needs to be both menacing and stealthy, and, a little later, fierce. Nothing that Mackerras conducts ever sounds placid, but this does come dangerously close to that. And while Artur Pizarro makes a fine partner for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, he does seem to want to keep things on a conversational rather than combative level. This works far better in the sublime slow movement, which floats serenely past precisely as it should. The last movement is playful and full of suprises, but again I would have expected more asperity from the orchestra.

The Fourth Concertos, that elusive, quietly intense work, again sounds a little workaday. The first movement's second subject, which should have an underlying tragic quality, is deprived of any ambiguity. The orchestra is not aggressive enough in the slow movement, so it's easily tamed by the soloist. It's in the Emperor Concerto that everyone seems to enjoy themselves most, though I could do with more muscle power for the last movement than Pizarro commands. Throughout, the recorded sound is ideal.


16 June 2009
Classical Source
Colin Anderson

Opening with an arpeggio, the opening of Piano Concerto No.4 steals in; Artur Pizarro's touch is gentle, the response from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra sensitive, detailed and confident under Sir Charles Mackerras's seasoned and vital direction. A likeable spontaneity is evident, and the recorded balance is exemplary in reflecting Pizarro's primus inter pares relationship with the SCO and its conductor.

Here the Fourth Concerto sparkles and reflects in equal measure; it's an invigorating and poetic performance, refreshing and thoughtful, the woodwinds contributing much, and Pizarro makes a great deal of the first-movement cadenza (the more usual of Beethoven's two) by withdrawing into it until unleashing it. The slow movement introduces stern, rebuking strings, effectively cowed by Pizarro's unwavering saintliness (although the effect would have benefited from something that is more adagio); the finale is full of joie de vivre and roughish high spirits.

The ‘Emperor' Concerto eschews grandness for a pulsing rhetoric, incident-packed in the orchestra, Pizarro effectively shading his stealth (the choice of a Bluthner instrument seemingly ideal for subtlety and precise yet graded attack). The flow of the Adagio here works well in suggesting something dreamily lilting, and the finale is remarkably energised and pointed.

The Third Concerto begins with the most measured of Mackerras's tempos, invoking sombreness, but with the SCO also blazing in tuttis. Pizarro's first entrance is defiant, then lyrical. Such tension is meaningful and sustains a buoyant yet pressing-ahead first movement, the ‘song without words' slow movement the bridge to a sprightly finale, which finally vanquishes earlier darkness.

This so-familiar music is treated to a considerable ‘makeover'; no matter how many versions you may have of these indestructible pieces, this release is mandatory.

01 - Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor Op 37 - Allegro con brio (1).flac
02 - Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor Op 37 - Largo.flac
03 - Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor Op 37 - Rondo allegro.flac
04 - Piano Concerto No 4 in G major Op 58 - Allegro moderato.flac
05 - Piano Concerto No 4 in G major Op 58 - Andante con moto.flac
06 - Piano Concerto No 4 in G major Op 58 -Rondo vivace.flac
07 - Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major Op 73 Emperor - Allegro (1).flac
08 - Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major Op 73 Emperor - Adagio un poco mosso.flac
09 - Piano Concerto No 5 in E flat major Op 73 Emperor - Rondo Allegro ma non troppo.flac

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