Beethoven: Triple Concerto, Op. 56 / Piano Concerto In D Major, Op. 61a

Description

Ludwig van Beethoven(1770-1827)Diabelli Variations,Op. 120; Variations on God Save the King, WoO 78 Variations on RuleBritannia, WoO 79Born in Bonn in 1770, Ludwig van Beethoven was the eldest son of asinger in the musical establishment of the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne and,more important, grandson of the Archbishop's former Kapellmeister, whose namehe took. The household was not a happy one. Beethoven's father, described afterhis death as a considerable loss to the profits of the wine trade, becameincreasingly inadequate both as a singer and as a father and husband, with hiswife always ready to draw invidious comparisons between him and his own father.Beethoven, however, was trained as a musician, however erratically, and dulyentered the service of the Archbishop, serving as an organist and as astring-player in the archiepiscopal orchestra. He was already winning somedistinction in Bonn, when, in 1787, he was first sent to Vienna, to study withMozart. The illness of his mother forced an early return from this venture andher subsequent death left him with responsibility for his younger brothers, inview of his father's domestic and professional failures. In 1792 Beethoven wassent once more to Vienna, now to study with Haydn, whom he had met in Bonn.Beethoven's early career in Vienna was helped very considerably by thecircumstances of his move there. The Archbishop was a son of the Empress MariaTheresa and there were introductions to leading members of society in theimperial capital. From Haydn he claimed to have learned nothing and his teachermust have been dismayed at times by his pupil's duplicity, but he went on totake lessons also from Albrechtsberger, well known for his mastery ofcounterpoint, and from the Court Composer Antonio Salieri, and was able toestablish an early position for himself as a pianist of remarkable ability,coupled with a clear genius in the necessarily related arts of improvisationand composition.The onset of deafness at the turn of the century seemed an irony ofFate. It led Beethoven gradually away from a career as a virtuoso performer andinto an area of composition where he was able to make remarkable changes andextensions of existing practice. Deafness tended to accentuate hiseccentricities and paranoia, which became extreme as time went on. At the sametime it allowed him to develop an aspect of his music that some critics alreadyregarded as academic or learned, that of counterpoint, an art in which he hadacquired great mastery. He continued to develop forms inherited from hispredecessors, notably Haydn and Mozart, but expanded these almost tobursting-point, introducing innovation after innovation as he grew older. Tofollowing generations his music offered a challenge. For some he seemed to havebrought the symphony, in particular, to a final climax, and composers likeBrahms, who drew on earlier tradition, were faced with the daunting task ofcontinuing on a path that, for some, at least, seemed already to have reached