Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58: I. Allegro moderato

the reason i got hung up on publishing this concerto was because on the day i decided to do it i started by browsing youtube videos to see which one i would like to post. this turned out to be a mistake, as i didn't find any that i truly loved and hence had no incentive to actually post. but i just found this arrau recording, and even though it's not a video, i'm posting it because i like it.

klemperer, philharmonia.
1/2/2/2 2/2/0/0 timp str

this was composed in 1807, and premiered in a private living-room concert with the coriolan overture and symphony 4 (op. 60). the public premiere didn't come until 1808, and was beethoven's last appearance as a solo pianist. it was also the premiere of symphonies 5 and 6, and the choral fantasy. (yea, what a ridiculous concert that must have been.)

in my experience, this is the beethoven piano concerto that music snobs like to like (at the expense of the more extroverted, jollier and altogether more exciting emperor concerto, no. 5). alone among the five, it has a really unique grace, poise, and gentleness about it. one of the best things is the very opening - solo piano, all alone, with the chorded theme. this is made even more astonishing by the entrance of the orchestra in B Major, which sort of relocates the key to B instead of acting as the III chord.

the entrance of the piano right after the introduction is one of my favorite moments, especially 3:12.

this movement comes in pretty standard sonata form. after the orchestral introduction you have exposition until 

about 6:45, with a second theme in D Major at 4:40. this second theme goes on for a while, circling around the fifths, and finally ending up in material from the first theme (instead of a D Major cadence like we expect) at 6:45. after bringing back the first theme material in the dominant key, we end up 7:38 with a mysterious repeated F, which somehow leads us into a development featuring falling minor chords, leaving us rather unsure of what key we are in. after falling down a huge sequence, we end up with a long section which serves as the dominant to C# Minor. though we start expecting this cadence for a while it doesn't come for a while, and when it does it is pp. this is my other favorite movement of the piece (9:15).

C#minor turns, stepwise, into D#dim, and then cadences neatly in E major. here we are on the ride back to the theme, with a long section serving as the dominant to tonic G major! the moment before the capitulation, the horns come in with a terrific call to announce the arrival of the tonic. then the first theme comes back, not at all introverted this time, but mighty and glorious.

this goes on as expected until 0:40, with the Bb7 chord and cadence in a faraway key - Eb major. it turns out that this is a sort of neapolitan to D, which continues to retransition to state the second theme, but this time in the correct key of G Major.

the rest is more or less as we expect. the second theme finishes in G, and we are led to a cadenza, which finishes on a quiet trill with the reentrance of the orchestra on the main theme.

i think arrau captures the grace for me in a way that most of the recordings on youtube don't, but feel free to make suggestions - there are lots of wonderful recordings of this piece.