Programme note
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770-1827
Piano Concerto No 2 in B-flat major, Op 19 (1785-95)
Allegro con brio
Adagio
Finale: Molto allegro
Tradition declares Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto to be in reality his first. In fact it is his only piano concerto to be correctly numbered. Though believed to date from around 1795, by which time he had left his native Bonn and settled in Vienna, it was probably sketched in his hometown ten years earlier. There it had been preceded in 1783 by an even more junior piano concerto, written in E-flat major (the future key of the Emperor concerto) upon which no number has been bestowed, but which still receives an occasional performance, particularly in Germany.
The impressive concerto in C major, complete with trumpets and drums and long established as No 1, is in fact his third, just as his third is his fourth, and so on. Whether this evening’s work in B flat major, which we identify as No 2, really requires a number is disputable, since it is as much a piece of juvenilia as the rest of his early Bonn output. Yet Beethoven’s powerful personality unquestionably shines through its every note. The music is keenly etched and full of invention, brilliant enough to suggest that, had he never moved to Vienna, Beethoven would still have become a composer of consequence. Though it was not a work he claimed to be proud of, he was sufficiently interested in it to perform it in Prague in 1798 and to go on revising it up to 1801.
The start of the first movement, more lightly scored than that of the C major concerto, succinctly provides the feel of the music, for in the space of a couple of phrases it supplies a brisk orchestral call to attention and a graceful answer from the violins. When the soloist enters it is not with one of the themes already heard but with an entirely new one – an idea Beethoven appropriated from Mozart, whose concertos he revered. But the movement also points the way to Beethoven’s more audacious symphonic style, not least through its abrupt and surprising modulations. The forward-looking cadenza, which Beethoven added some years later, is even more surprising in attitude.
The Adagio, hailed by Beethoven’s pupil Czerny as a “dramatic vocal scene”, is broad and expressive, with a main theme played first by the strings before being taken up by the soloist, who then proceeds to a graceful tributary theme loaded with decorations. But the most striking moment is to come, when the piano breaks free from the orchestra to play a remarkable recitative-like passage in bare, single notes, marked con gran espressione. The orchestra steals back with atmospheric references to the main theme, and the movement ends quietly.
The finale is a spirited rondo, with a bumpy main theme bounced out by the soloist. An episode involving a cycle of broken octaves on the piano leads to a new, forward-looking, rather Schumannesque tune, and then to a grinding, syncopated passage taken through several minor keys. After a last return to the main theme, the concerto ends with a rippling decrescendo on the piano, followed by five affirmative bars for the orchestra.
© Conrad Wilson
