Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 / Rondo, Woo 6

Description

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) Piano Concerto No.1 in C Major, Opus 15 Rondo in B Flat Major, WoO 6Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn inDecember, 1770, the son of Johann van Beethoven, a singer in the service of theArchbishop of Cologne, and the grandson of Ludwig van Beethoven, Kapellmeisterto the same patron, who died in 1773, but whose distinction lived on in thefamily, the possible cause of Johann van Beethoven's professional and parentalinadequacy, his son finally forced to assume responsibility for his two youngerbrothers, a task he was to continue to discharge in a characteristicallyeccentric manner.At home Beethoven had received erraticpractical training in music, but was able to follow a more consistent course ofstudy from 1781 with the court organist Neefe, whose unpaid deputy he became.In 1784 he entered the paid service of the Archbishop as deputy court organistand playing the cembalo or the viola in the court orchestra, as occasiondemanded. In 1788 he was sent to Vienna, where he hoped to study with Mozart,but was recalled to Bonn by news of his mother's final illness. Four yearslater he went to Vienna once more, this time to study with Haydn. He remainedthere for the rest of his life.Beethoven established himself in Viennaat first as a virtuoso keyboard-player, his virtuosity including improvisationat the keyboard and composition. From Albrechtsberger he took lessons incounterpoint and from the Court Composer Salieri in vocal and dramatic setting,but he claimed to find little help in his lessons from Haydn. Armed withsuitable introductions, he was able to make influential friends among thearistocracy and it was with their support that he continued his career inVienna, even when increasing deafness made performance at first difficult andeventually impossible.It is a tribute to the discernment ofBeethoven's patrons that they perceived his genius, in spite of his uncouthnessand increasing eccentricities of character, in the face of which they exercisedconsiderable restraint and generosity. In Vienna he lived through turbulenttimes, through the years of Napoleonic conquests and into the repressive age ofMetternich. He died in March, 1827, his death the occasion for public mourningin Vienna at the passing of a long familiar figure whose like the city was notto see again.Beethoven wrote his first piano concertoin 1784, at the age of fourteen and had attempted a violin concerto before hefinally left Bonn. In Vienna he was to publish five piano concertos, the first,published as No.2, completed in a revised version in 1795 and the fifth, theso-called Emperor Concerto, published in 1811. The first decade of thecentury also saw the composition of the D major Violin Concerto, the TripleConcerto and the Choral Fantasia.The Rondo in B Flat Major, WoO 6,was written some time before 1794 and was intended as the final movement of theconcerto published as No.2 in 1801, but probably first sketched in Bonn. It waspublished after the composer's d