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

Program notes

About the Work

Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, composed largely in 1805 and 1806, belongs to the same astonishing burst of creativity that produced the Fourth Symphony, the Violin Concerto, and the three ‘Razumovsky’ string quartets. It stands at the heart of what is often called Beethoven’s ‘heroic’ middle period, yet it is anything but heroic in the conventional sense. Where the Third Concerto had been dramatic and stormy, and the later ‘Emperor’ would be all blazing grandeur, the Fourth is intimate, lyrical, and inward, a work that achieves its effects through poetry rather than force. It is, for many listeners and pianists alike, the most beautiful of the five.

The concerto received its first public performance on 22 December 1808, in one of the most legendarily overstuffed concerts in history. At the Theater an der Wien, in a freezing, under-rehearsed marathon lasting some four hours, Beethoven premiered not only this concerto but also the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, parts of the Mass in C, the concert aria ‘Ah! perfido’, and the Choral Fantasy. He played the solo part of the concerto himself, in what would prove to be his last appearance as a concerto soloist before deafness forced him from the platform. Contemporary accounts suggest the audience, numbed by cold and length, scarcely registered the concerto’s subtleties. It took decades for the work to find its place; Felix Mendelssohn championed it in the 1830s, helping rescue it from neglect, and it has never since left the repertoire.

The most celebrated feature of the concerto announces itself in its opening bars. By long convention, a Classical concerto begins with an orchestral introduction, the soloist entering only after the orchestra has laid out the themes. Beethoven overturns this at a stroke: the piano begins entirely alone, unaccompanied, with a hushed, gentle phrase in G major, marked dolce. Only after the soloist has spoken does the orchestra answer, and it answers, remarkably, in the distant key of B major, a soft and luminous surprise. In a single gesture Beethoven redefines the relationship between soloist and ensemble, replacing rivalry with conversation, and confrontation with mutual listening.

The slow movement is one of the supreme achievements in all of Beethoven, and one of the most original in form. It is a stark, almost theatrical dialogue between two opposed forces: the strings alone, playing in gruff, dotted unison, stern and implacable; and the piano, answering with phrases of pleading, song-like tenderness. The two alternate without compromise at first, but gradually the piano’s gentleness prevails, and the strings, softening, fall silent and subdued. Since the nineteenth century this movement has been heard as a depiction of Orpheus taming the Furies (the mythological singer soothing the guardians of the underworld with the beauty of his music), and the parallel is irresistible, even if Beethoven left no such programme. The finale, which follows without a pause, breaks the spell with a sparkling, dancing rondo, full of high spirits and rhythmic vitality, bringing the concerto home in radiant good humour.

Throughout, the Fourth Concerto reveals Beethoven thinking less about display than about colour, intimacy, and the persuasive power of a single melodic line. It asks the soloist for refinement rather than thunder: for a singing tone, a sensitivity to silence, and the patience to let a quiet phrase carry enormous weight. In an age that prized virtuosity, Beethoven wrote a concerto whose deepest virtuosity is one of feeling.

What to Listen For

Listen, first, for the very opening. Before any orchestra is heard, the solo piano alone plays a soft, tender phrase: five gentle chords resolving into a quiet melody. This is the work’s signature, and it asks you to lean in rather than be swept up. Notice how the orchestra then replies not in the home key but a step away, in a warmer, more distant colour, before the music settles. From this first exchange, the whole first movement unfolds as a dialogue of give and take: the piano rarely dominates, more often it muses, decorates, and converses, weaving filigree around the orchestra’s themes. Listen for the cadenza near the movement’s end (the soloist’s extended solo flight) and for how the music sinks back to quietness afterward rather than ending in a blaze.

The slow movement (Andante con moto) is the heart of the concerto, and it works as a piece of wordless drama. Track the two characters carefully. The strings enter alone, playing in harsh, clipped, dotted rhythms: stern, even menacing, all in unison. The piano answers, every time, with soft, flowing, beseeching phrases. Follow this alternation as a contest: the strings stern, the piano gentle. Hear how, little by little, the piano’s tenderness wears the strings down. Their phrases grow quieter, shorter, less aggressive, until they are subdued altogether and the movement dissolves into a hushed stillness. This is the Orpheus-taming-the-Furies effect, and once you hear it as a dialogue you will not forget it.

The finale follows immediately, without a break, and the change of mood is delicious. A bright, bouncing rondo theme springs up in the strings, soon caught by the piano, and the music turns playful, dancing, full of rhythmic spring. Listen for trumpets and timpani entering here for the first time in the concerto, adding a festive sparkle the earlier movements deliberately withheld. Enjoy the wit of the exchanges between piano and orchestra, the surprising harmonic side-steps, and the gathering energy toward a brilliant, high-spirited close that crowns the whole work with joy.