Die Prfüng des Küssens (WoO 89)

Mit Mädeln sich vertragen (WoO 90)

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58

Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, "Eroica," op. 55
Performances: Apr 19/20, 2008

Keep your eye on him; he will make the world talk about him some day.—Mozart, in a letter to his father dated 1787, after meeting Beethoven. Beethoven was the pillar of smoke that led to the Promised Land.—Franz Liszt.

Beethoven’s time was one of revolutions and wars, terror and reform, poverty and extravagance and in many ways his music reflects the turbulence of the age in which he lived.  Austria was at war with Ottoman Turkey, the French were in dispute with Austria, and England with France.  The fall of the Bastille in 1789 was a sign of the end of the old order, extinguished forever.  The period brought wide cultural changes, changes in political philosophy and society, and in the arts.  Beethoven is seen as the bridge from the restraint and preoccupation with form of the Classical era, to the wildly personalized and emotional Romantic era.

Beethoven had a remarkable musical output.  Just to name a few:  32 piano sonatas, 16 string quartets, 6 piano concerti plus a fragment (of which only 5 remain in the repertoire), 10 violin sonatas, 4 cello sonatas, 172 folk song arrangements, 60 canons and “musical jokes,” at least 2 ballets, an opera (“Fidelio”), and a large number of other works for chamber ensembles, choir, voice … and 9 great symphonies that still represent the highest consistent level of symphonic output by any composer in history.

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in the provincial court city of Bonn, Germany, probably on December  16, 1770.  Beethoven's talent was such that, at the age of 12, he was already assistant to the organist Christian Gottlob Neefe, with whom he studied.  Attempts to establish him as a prodigy in the mold of Mozart had little success, however.

In 1787 Beethoven was sent to Vienna, but his mother fell ill, and he had to return to Bonn almost immediately.  She died a few months later, and in 1789 Beethoven himself requested that his alcoholic father be retired, a move that left him responsible for his two younger brothers.  Beethoven left Bonn for Vienna a second time in November of 1792, in order to study with Haydn.

In 1794 French forces occupied the Rhineland; consequently, Beethoven's ties with and support from the Bonn court came to an end.  His father had died a month after his departure from Bonn, and his brothers joined him in Vienna.  He remained there the rest of his life, leaving only for holidays and concerts in nearby cities.  His only extended journey was to Prague, Dresden, and Berlin in 1796. Beethoven never held an official position in Vienna.  He supported himself by giving concerts, by teaching piano, and increasingly through the sale of his compositions.  Members of the Viennese aristocracy were his steady patrons, and in 1809 three of them—Prince Kinsky, Prince Lobkowitz, and the Archduke Rudolph—even guaranteed him a yearly income with the sole condition that he remain in Vienna.

The last 30 years of Beethoven's life were shaped by a series of personal crises, the first of which was the onset of deafness.  The early symptoms, noticeable to the composer already before 1800, affected him socially more than musically. His reaction was despair, resignation, and defiance. Resolving finally to "seize fate by the throat," he emerged from the crisis with a series of triumphant works that mark the beginning of a new period in his stylistic development.

A second crisis a decade later was the breaking off of a relationship with an unnamed lady (probably Antonie Brentano, the wife of a friend) known to us as the "Immortal Beloved," as Beethoven addressed her in a series of letters in July 1812. This was apparently the most serious of several such relationships with women who were in some way out of his reach, and its traumatic conclusion was followed by a lengthy period of resignation and reduced musical activity.

During this time Beethoven's deafness advanced to the stage that he could no longer perform publicly, and he required a slate or little notebooks (now known as "conversation books") to communicate with visitors.  The death of his brother Caspar Carl in 1815 led to a 5-year legal struggle for custody of Caspar's son Karl, then 9 years old, in whom Beethoven saw a last chance for the domestic life that had otherwise eluded him.  His possessiveness of Karl provoked a final crisis in the summer of 1826, when the young man attempted suicide.  Shortly thereafter, Beethoven's health began to fail, and he died on March 26, 1827 in Vienna.

Beethoven’s arias for bass, Die Prüfung des Küssens and Mit Mädeln sich vertagen, come from his Bonn period, 1782-1785, but little else is known about them.  He gave them no opus number but may have referred to them in a letter to one of his publishers.  They were never published in his lifetime and weren’t discovered and added to his catalogue until after he died.  The lighter nature of the arias suggests they might have been written for a friend, perhaps as a gift.

Dedicated to Archduke Rudolph of Austria, the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, op. 58, was premiered in Vienna as part of an all-Beethoven program on December 22, 1808.  It was the last of Beethoven’s piano concerti to be performed by the composer, and, with his deafness quickly setting in, reviews of Beethoven’s playing at the premiere were mixed.  After Beethoven’s death, the Fourth Piano Concerto would be overshadowed by the “Emperor” concerto and the haunting Third Piano Concerto in C Minor.  It’s believed that Mendelssohn may have been the Fourth Concerto’s saving grace with a revival performance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1836.  Schumann was present at that performance, finding himself overwhelmed and practically unable to breathe.  Compared to the other piano concerti, this one starts in an unusual manner, with the piano alone playing a gentle, swaying theme.  The orchestra takes over in sympathetic fashion, but the piano returns with an improvisatory flourish.  Despite the length of the first movement, it’s surprisingly coherent—always sunny, but with a slight undertone of melancholy characteristic of Beethoven’s pursuit of the quintessentially human.  The second movement, a short Andante, paints the orchestra somewhat fiercely, with the piano consistently responding with pithy statements that develop more like small cadenzas.  The final Rondo is unusually dramatic for Beethoven, with a sense of feverish abandon which, from all reports, Beethoven executed at wildly brisk tempi.

 There has been so much written and said about Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, op. 55, “Eroica,” that it becomes difficult to view this masterpiece objectively and clearly.  Beethoven’s initial dedication of the symphony to Napoleon usually warps the discussion, but we would do well to remember that Beethoven (once Napoleon crowned himself emperor and Beethoven’s opinion of him changed) angrily scratched out the dedication but did not chuck the entire symphony.  This is pure symphonic music that needs no story or “program.”  We should begin as Beethoven did, with the two crashing E-flat major (three flats!) chords at the beginning.  Why two?  We know that Beethoven took the numbers of his symphonies seriously, so why not three?  It’s the development of the first movement, an inspired yet exhaustive process all in ¾ time, that turns the two chords at the beginning into the three E-flat chords at the end.  Throughout, you can sense Beethoven working with small numbers and big ideas, like a backdrop of philosophy behind elusively simple music.  (Beethoven’s reading included Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Geothe, Schiller, and Kant.)  Before long, it’s the philosophy, not the notes, that sweeps you away.  The second movement, a funeral march in C Minor (still three flats!), is so dramatic and cathartic that it brought many to the mistaken assumption that it was based upon some part of Napoleonic history.  Once again, the music transcends any notion of a program, as the dark dotted rhythms of the initial theme alternate with beautiful hymn-like melodies characteristic of Beethoven’s search for the quintessentially human.  With two lengthy and thorough movements already, Beethoven opted for a more concise Scherzo, wildly fast and featuring three (yes, three!) heroic horns.  The Scherzo is impulsive, light, and on the edge of any orchestra’s capabilities.  To complete such a vast symphonic statement, Beethoven would need a Finale to reach beyond the bounds of all other finales before it, and so it is.  After a quick slap on the jaw in G minor to get your attention, Beethoven quietly introduces a simple theme in E-flat major, which he develops more thoroughly than any symphonic melody before it.  We hear this theme forward, reverse, loudly, softly, upside down, backward, and in every imaginable fugue, along with a companion theme which is more legato and noble.  The fugues are some of the most challenging, varied, and complex in all the repertoire, and this was at a time when “old Bach’s fugues” had gone out of fashion!  When all fugal options are completely exhausted and the entire development has come to a crashing halt, we hear the second theme, slowly and sweetly, scored up high in the winds (as if from heaven) and then soulfully in the low strings (as though on earth), all leading to a beautiful climax in E-flat major which threatens to die away into nothingness.  Beethoven, however, saves one more wild release, again in E-flat major and with our three heroic horns at the fore, before a joyful conclusion with, of course, three final chords in E-flat major.