Beethoven: Piano Concerto #1 in C Major
01/15/2025
I don't listen to the radio very much, but sometimes when I'm making the ten-mile drive into town and don't want to bother picking out music to play from my phone, I press one of three presets on the radio. The three stations are: the one that claims to be "alternative," but doesn't really go very far in that direction; the Classic Raahhhk station; and the local classical+NPR station. It doesn't usually work out very well, partly because I switch away from the first two whenever a commercial or a song I don't like comes on, which is frequently, only to find that the grass is just as brown. And whatever's playing on the classical station is either already in progress or, if I catch the beginning, won't be finished before I get where I'm going. Or maybe I won't get either the beginning or the end. And then after 3pm the annoying ladies of NPR take over.
One day a few weeks ago I jumped to the classical station and found a piano concerto in progress. "That's one of the Mozart concertos," I thought, though I had no idea which one; to tell you the truth, they...well, I'd better not say they all sound the same, but most of them are quite similar, unless you're comparing a very early to a later one. But then it took a turn which of course I can't describe but which seemed rather off the beaten Mozartian path.
I was very curious about its identity, but when I got to where I was going the piece was still in progress. Happily the station posts its log on the web, so when I got back home I was able to find out what it was: Beethoven's first piano concerto.
Well, that was intriguing, and now I wanted to hear the whole thing. Moreover, I decided that the time had come for me to get to know all five of the concertos. I'm not sure I had ever before heard the first three, and it has been many years since I heard the fourth and fifth. I've had for years, but never listened to, a set of the five played by Alfred Brendel with the Chicago Symphony conducted by James Levine. Where it ranks in the opinion of connoisseurs I don't know, but I thought surely it must be at least respectable.
So. I enjoyed this work but it isn't going to be a great favorite. The first movement begins with the martial or processional Beethoven which is the Beethoven I am not very fond of. In general I found the entire first movement continually interesting, especially the exciting cadenza, but not deeply engaging. The second movement is slow and pretty, as expected, but didn't strike me as especially memorable. But the third--oh man. It's a joyful blaze. It has an instantly memorable tune which I sort of want to call a riff, and is almost treated that way, recurring frequently. I don't know how often I'll go back to the entire work, but a few days after hearing the entire work several times I went back and listened to the third movement alone--twice. It's that much fun.
I also revisited the second movement, and found that hearing it in isolation instead of as a lull after the lengthy and vigorous first made it more appealing. It's really quite beautiful. It was like meeting a quiet and mild-mannered person in a crowd and not getting a very strong impression of...well, I was going to say "him or her," but really in that figure I'm envisioning a woman, if only because the movement is pretty and graceful, and men are not pretty and graceful. So, her--and later on conversing with her alone and finding that she's more charming and interesting than you had thought from that first impression. (I think I've used that analogy before, but I can't remember where. I'll attribute that to old age.)
But about my initial idea that what I was hearing on the radio was Mozart: I can't figure it out now. I don't know which part of the concerto I heard that day in the truck, but in general it doesn't sound much like Mozart to me, though it was written only four years after Mozart's last piano concerto, #27 (1795 and 1791 respectively). In hope of getting some notion of what I might have been hearing, I listened to #27, and I don't hear much resemblance to the Beethoven. So...I don't know.
On to the second concerto. Which by the way was written before the first.
A nice posting from someone clueless in classical music. I enjoyed reading it after a lifetime reading the experts.
Posted by: Yiannis | 02/01/2025 at 09:43 AM
What a weird comment.
Posted by: Rob G | 02/01/2025 at 11:58 AM
Indeed. I guess it may have been meant as a compliment...?...
Posted by: Mac | 02/01/2025 at 12:20 PM
Yeah...maybe. You can take it more than one way though, which is why it's odd.
Posted by: Rob G | 02/02/2025 at 03:37 PM