Beethoven’s so-called ‘middle period’, roughly the years 1802-12, is often referred to as his ‘Promethean’ phase. The masterworks of this time, we are often told, are characterised by intense striving, heaven-storming ambition, revolutionary daring in matters of form and expression.
But as Beethoven wrote enigmatically on one of his manuscripts, ‘Sometimes the opposite is also true’; and if any work could be held to demonstrate the truth of that it’s the Fourth Piano Concerto, a work that, composed in 1805-06, enjoyed its premiere at the same huge Theater an der Wien concert on 22 December 1808 – the same event that also saw the first performances of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies.
A guide to the music of Beethoven's piano concerto No.4
As if to underline this ‘opposite is also true’ thesis, Beethoven based the Fourth Piano Concerto’s long first movement on the same rhythmic pattern as the famous da-da-da-DAH ‘Fate’ motif that launches the Fifth Symphony. But it’s hard to imagine anything less like that symphony’s driven, turbulent, anguished Allegro con brio.
The work’s opening is truly innovative. Where almost every classical era concerto before it had begun with a substantial orchestral introduction, setting out the main ideas before soloist claims centre-stage, Beethoven begins his Fourth with the soloist alone, quietly and ‘gently’ (dolce) delivering the main theme as though in a kind of reverie – it could almost be the beginning of one of Beethoven’s famous improvisations. It breaks off, as though in mid-thought, and the strings reply with a hushed but magically surprising chord.
The movement that grows from this has its moments of grandeur and brilliance, but it is that opening that sets the emotional scene. Tender lyricism, delicacy and warmth of tone, even moments of intimate, chamber music-like exchange between piano and orchestra are what one tends to remember above all, even in the cadenza that is normally played (Beethoven completed two of them).
Strikingly, trumpets and drums are silent in this movement – nothing martial is permitted here. There are also moments of exquisite mystery, as at the beginning of the central ‘development’ section, where the piano leads us into strange new harmonic territory, with mesmerising crystalline falling figures; almost without realising it we have stepped into a romantic dream world.
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After this comes a slow – or, rather, slower – movement (the marking is Andante con moto), whose effect is out of all proportion to its length. Orchestral strings and piano alternate and finally combine in a powerful and moving dialogue: strings initially brusque and rhythmically jagged, piano soothing, placatory. It could have been composed as a demonstration of the verse in the biblical Book of Proverbs: ‘A gentle answer turns away wrath’. The piano’s phrases are at first incredibly simple – more or less a succession of barely ornamented chords – but the poignancy is intense.
By the middle of the 19th century, Romantic writers were comparing this movement to the Ancient Greek legend of the divinely inspired musician Orpheus pacifying wild beasts or the Furies in Hades with his playing. The image has stuck – and no wonder. As the piano grows more and more impassioned, the string writing quietens and loses its edge, until at the end – after a short, heartfelt piano cadenza – only a ghost of its opening motif can be heard in the bass, like a great rough beast falling peacefully into sleep. According to a contemporary writer, when Beethoven played this movement he ‘truly sang’ through the piano. To make such simple writing ‘sing’ seems a huge challenge, but it’s surprising how well it comes over in so many performances.
Virtuosic display, kept on a tight rein in the first two movements, is now allowed its moment in the Rondo (Vivace) finale, though even this begins with hushed strings, and a lightly dancing answer from the piano. There is Beethovenian grit along with the brilliance (trumpets and drums now doing their military bit), but there are plenty more moments of confidential poetry, as at the entry of the second theme – the piano solo followed by what sounds like a half-defined pre-echo of the famous ‘Ode to Joy’ theme in the finale of the Ninth Symphony.
This time, however, Beethoven’s cadenza is all fire and brilliance and, unusually for the time, Beethoven notates the piano part in full to the very last bar, ensuring that keyboard fireworks dominate proceedings. Thus a concerto that began with the soloist meditating alone ends with the piano very much in command. If it’s an invitation for applause, the music at the very least has earned it.
The best recordings of Beethoven's piano concerto No. 4
Maria João Pires (piano)
Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/Daniel Harding
Onyx ONYX4125 (2014)
You know you’re in for something very special when the first chord of this piano concerto makes you sit up, senses instantly attuned. It may be just a simple, hushed chord of G major, but the intensity here is utterly electric. From that, the opening phrase tails off as though in a trance. Conductor Daniel Harding and the orchestra then deliver an engrossingly expressive account of the ‘introduction’, which leads so naturally to Maria João Pires’s next entrance that it feels like she’s deftly picking up the thread she let drop moments ago.
The first movement is quite measured in pace – more moderato than Allegro moderato you might say – and Pires allows the tempo to slacken during some of her reflective solos. But a steady momentum builds up during the first section and it never really slackens, and the fortissimo return of the first theme has a grand, but not forceful, inevitability.
Pires’s minute shaping and shading are just as captivating. She can make what looks on paper like a formulaic ‘brilliant’ figuration into an expressive event in itself, but it never once feels like exaggeration. In some performances the familiar Beethoven solo cadenza can feel a bit of a dramatic non-sequitur – is it too dramatic, too virtuosic for its context? Certainly not here, and the easing back into the coda is one of the finest things in the whole of this performance.
Harding has evidently noted the marking sempre staccato (always ‘staccato’) on the string theme at the start of the second movement – traditionally this tended to be ignored in the interests of emphatic fullness of tone. It sounds angry enough, though, and makes a fine furious antagonist for Pires’s Orpheus. But what’s also remarkable is the way – as in the first movement’s ‘picking up the thread’ effect – she manages to give the impression that the solo song is really continuous: Orpheus sings as much for himself as for his antagonists.
After this the fireworks scintillate enjoyably in the final movement, and there’s a strong sense of building up to something suitably rousing towards the end. But that’s not what lingers in the memory – at least not for this particular listener. Here is a strong reminder that penetrating gentleness can not only turn away wrath – in fact it can be just as compelling, and far more satisfying, than attention-seeking virtuosity.
Stephen Kovacevich (piano)
Philips 422 4822
This 1971 recording with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Colin Davis has dated well, musically and sonically. There’s a bit more muscularity in the solo playing, occasionally more of a hint of arm-wrestling in the relationship between piano and orchestra, than in the Pires/Harding version. But it’s the clarity and delicacy and, above all, the concentrated emotional insight that impress most. There’s a real sense of desolation in the slow movement: Orpheus may have won this contest, but his own grief is unassuaged.
Murray Perahia (piano)
Sony G010001222380W
More spacious and civilised than most competitors, Perahia’s 1986 recording with the Concertgebouw is still a long way from blandly beautiful. It’s the intelligence and musicality of Perahia’s playing, plus the sense of minutely attuned partnership with conductor Bernard Haitink, that makes this such a strong contender. Perahia has a way of focusing in on tiny details that makes one want to hit the replay button, and yet the feeling for the musical line makes it important to catch what comes next, however well you think you know this music. It’s also superbly recorded.
Wilhelm Kempff (piano)
DG 476 5299
Performing was a ‘mission’ for Kempff, and it sounds it in this 1953 performance with the Berlin Philharmonic under Paul van Kempen. Over a half-century later, one can still feel the steely intensity, even when the playing barely rises above a whisper – which is quite often. Others may make more of this passage or that, but I don’t know a performance that leaves me with such a sense of the Fourth Concerto as a whole statement, however richly detailed. Emotional and intellectual insight are rarely so integrated.
And one to avoid…
Ronald Brautigam’s fascinating and well-played 2010 recording with the Norrköping Symphony should come with a health warning. After the concerto’s premiere, Beethoven wrote embellishments and alterations into the solo part, perhaps reflecting the way he played it. He didn’t publish them, though. For editor Barry Cooper it makes the music ‘more sparkling, virtuosic and sophisticated’; for me it sounds ‘blingy’. The most poetic of piano concertos turned into a coloratura showcase? Please no.
