Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major (1806)

Beethoven's Piano Concertos   (list of famous piano concertos) 


    Childhood

         WoO 4:     Piano Concerto No. 0 in E♭ major (1784)  (written at age 14, most of it is lost)

     Early period

         Opus 15:   Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major  (composed 1796–97)
         Opus 19:   Piano Concerto No. 2 in B♭ major  (movements 1 & 2: 1787–1789, finale: 1795)
         Opus 37:   Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor   (composed 1800–01)

     Middle period

          Opus 58: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major  (composed 1805–06)
          Opus 73: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E♭ major  ("Emperor")  (composed 1809–10)

Miscellaneous

          Hess 15:  Piano Concerto No. 6 in D major (unfinished)  (1815)
          Opus 56:  Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and piano in C major  (1803)  

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Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major was the first of two "middle period" piano concertos Beethoven wrote.  It is on these two that Beethoven rivals Mozart's reputation as a composer of piano concertos.

It was premiered in March 1807 at a private concert of the home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz.  The Coriolan Overture and the Fourth Symphony were premiered in that same concert. However, the public premiere was not until a concert on 22 December 1808 at Vienna's Theater an der Wien.

A review in the May 1809 edition of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung states that "[this concerto] is the most admirable, singular, artistic and complex Beethoven concerto ever".  However, after its first performance, the piece was neglected until 1836, when it was revived by Felix Mendelssohn.  Today, the work is widely performed and recorded, and is considered to be one of the central works of the piano concerto literature.

In the innovative 1806 Piano Concerto # 4,  Beethoven's mood became one of introspection and overall intimacy, no longer constrained by structural expectations.  This is apparent at the very outset, in which the first sound is the piano suggesting the furtive initial theme, launching an overall aura of ruminative self-reflection paced by the soloist.

The apex is the astounding middle movement, marked Andante con moto (slowly but with motion), something of a psychological conquest in which, with alternating phrases, the piano lovingly calms the strings' gruff theme into submission; reduces them further to unadorned accompaniment; has a solo turn of exquisite beauty, as though seemingly satisfied with its dominance; and briefly rears in triumph, leaving the strings to muster mere fragments of their former theme and with only enough strength to lead directly into the concluding rondo.

Irving Kolodin said: "In whichever framework it is put, it stands as a monumental example of music's ability to say eloquently what cannot be said in any other mode of communication."


Cadenzas for the Fourth Piano Concerto have been written by a number of pianists and composers throughout its history; these include Beethoven himself (two separate sets of cadenzas), Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann, Ferruccio Busoni, Hans von Bülow, Ignaz Moscheles, Camille Saint-Saëns, Anton Rubinstein, Wilhelm Kempff, Nikolai Medtner, Eugen d'Albert, Leopold Godowsky, Samuil Feinberg, and Marc-André Hamelin.