I may have mentioned in a post on one of the other Beethoven piano concertos that I thought I had heard the 5th (the "Emperor") in the probably fairly distant past, but didn't remember it at all. Yet when I listened to it a few weeks ago I recognized it instantly. The entire first movement was very familiar, and the reacquaintance was very welcome. But that was the first movement only--I didn't recognize the second and third movements at all. I deduce from those facts that I once, probably many years ago, had an LP with the first movement on side one, the others on side two (that fits with the medium and the relative lengths of the movements) and that I must have often played one side, then for one reason or another--distraction, probably--not immediately turned the record over to hear the rest of the concerto. That wouldn't be surprising, both in the nature of the thing and in light of my temperament. 

My CD set of the concertos includes notes by the musicologist (or musicalologist, as Peter Schickele used to say) Harry Goldschmidt. He goes on about the connection of the Emperor, which was written in 1809, to the reaction against Napoleon and to the political upheavals of the preceding twenty years or so.

The revolutionary "spirit of the age" did not pass music by. There can be no possible doubt that the composer of this concerto regarded himself as the agent of that spirit....

...He is conscious of the power of his notes to form and promote the community....

And more in that vein. Goldschmidt seems to have been a leftist of some sort, and to have considered the French revolution an obviously good thing. So I guess it's not surprising that he would see Beethoven that way. No doubt there's something to it--Goldschmidt was certainly an expert--but it's uninteresting to me. In fact I'd go a bit further and say that to the extent that it is accurate it is a facet of the quality that has always made me say (as I've said here before) that I often feel a certain reservation about Beethoven's work: an assertive quality, bordering on angry, with an egotistical edge, in which so many critics find a more or less self-conscious idea of the artist as prophet-hero. 

But never mind that. And never mind the revolutions, or any other philosophical-political significance attributed to the music: I hear the first movement as brilliant, dramatic, passionate, complex, unfailingly interesting and affecting. And I am very pleased to meet the second and third movements, which though considerably shorter than the first are worthy of it. The second is eight minutes or so of uncomplicated (relatively uncomplicated) beautiful melody, to my ears as good as anything of that sort that Beethoven ever wrote. Of the third I can say pretty much the same thing I said about the third movement of the fourth concerto: "The second gives way without pause to the third, which is like the final movement of the first three concertos, fast (mostly) and exhilarating."

According to Wikipedia the origin of the nickname "Emperor" is obscure, and perhaps may refer to its place among the Beethoven concertos. I wouldn't argue with that, though think I like the fourth just as much. At any rate this is a masterpiece which surely belongs among Beethoven's greatest works. 

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This past Saturday I attended the final concert of the Mobile Symphony's season. The program was not extremely appealing to me: Ravel's La Valse, Saint-Saens's Piano Concerto #2, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique. Of these, I knew the first, had never heard the second (until I listened to a recording a couple of days before the concert), and as far as I recall had not heard the third since I was in my early twenties. 

La Valse is not exactly a major work, but of the three it's the one I'm most likely to want to hear again anytime soon. I think it's brilliant in a relatively small and focused way. I've always taken it to be what apparently many people do: an image of the stable and comparatively pleasant Europe before the Great War, whirling into madness. According to the conductor's introduction at the concert, Ravel never admitted that such was his intention. But since it was composed in 1919, and is in fact a waltz that goes rather mad, it's hard to avoid that interpretation.

I discovered that I have an LP of the Saint-Saens concerto--the one that David Hurvitz of Classics Today considers to be the reference recording, from 1958, with Rubinstein and the Symphony of the Air. (The LP was a fairly recent acquisition, part of the Father Dorrell trove.) As I said, I listened to it once a few days before the concert and wasn't much taken with it. It seemed fairly slight as a whole, and I enjoyed the very lively and brief second and third movements more than the more substantial first. That impression held after the concert, in spite of the very energetic performance given by the guest soloist, Charlie Albright. Perhaps I'd like the concerto more if I got to know it better, but given my long list of important works yet to be heard, I'm not planning to do that.

Back when I was quite young and heard the Symphonie Fantastique at least several times, I didn't care that much for it. Program music is at best a questionable venture, and in this case the program was for me hard to take entirely seriously. The symphony purports to be a narrative, more or less, of The Artist's despairing unrequited love which ends in an opium dream in which The Artist murders the beloved (fourth movement) and is guillotined for the crime, but nevertheless experiences (fifth movement) a sort of witches' sabbath in which "ghosts, sorcerers, and monsters of all kinds [are] gathered together for his funeral," joined by the beloved who becomes one of the evil celebrants.  You probably know the story--if you don't, here's the Wikipedia entry.

Apparently my 21-year-old self and I are not the only ones who have trouble taking the program seriously. The conductor introduced the symphony with a summary of the story, and the audience laughed. 

Reservations about the program can be dismissed. The important thing is whether and how well the music stands alone. And to my taste it just isn't all that wonderful. I don't mean to sound entirely negative; I did enjoy hearing it. But as we were applauding at the end I said to my wife, "Well, that should do for another fifty years."

I trust you recognize that by capitalizing "The Artist" I'm making fun of the whole Romantic conception of the artist as a fundamentally different and more important sort of person, elevated by his genius and sensibility above the crowd.