{ program notes
Mr . Denk has toured frequently with violinist Joshua Bell , and their Sony Classical album , French Impressions , won the 2012 Echo Klassik award . He also collaborates regularly with cellist Steven Isserlis .
Mr . Denk graduated from Oberlin College , Indiana University , and the Juilliard School .
Jeremy Denk last appeared with the BSO in January 2014 , performing Mozart ' s Piano Concerto No . 25 , Nicholas McGegan , conductor .
About the concert :
Piano Concerto No . 5 in E-flat Major , “ Emperor ”
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born in Bonn , Germany , December 16 , 1770 ; died in Vienna , Austria , March 26 , 1827
There is a certain irony in the subtitle , “ Emperor ,” never used by the composer himself . By the spring of 1809 , when Beethoven was creating this concerto , the last person he would have wanted to honor was the emperor of the day , Napoleon Bonaparte .
In May of that year , Napoleon ’ s armies were actually besieging the city of Vienna . Beethoven ’ s home was in the French cannons ’ line of fire , and he was forced to flee to his brother ’ s house , where he holed up in the cellar with a pillow pressed to his still sensitive ears . But his work on his new concerto did not cease .
And yet taken in a more generic sense , “ Emperor ” is an appropriate title for this concerto . It is a work of imperial size and scope — particularly in its huge first movement — and its virile , martial tone that reflects a war-riven era . The E-flat Major key was one of Beethoven ’ s favorites and one he associated with heroic thoughts ; it is also the key of the “ Eroica .” Sadly , Beethoven was never able to display his own powers as a pianist with this work . Although he had introduced all his other keyboard concertos to the public , his deafness was too far advanced for him to risk playing the 1810 premiere in Leipzig .
The length and complexity of the sonata-form first movement demonstrate Beethoven ’ s new symphonic conception of the concerto form . The opening is boldly innovative : first we hear the pianist sweeping over the keyboard in grand , toccatalike arpeggios and scales , punctuated by loud chords from the orchestra . Then the soloist allows the orchestra to present its traditional exposition of themes . The first theme , with its distinctive turn ornament , is introduced immediately . The second , a quirky little march , appears first in halting minor-mode form in the strings , then is immediately smoothed out and shifted to the major by the horns . Over the course of the movement , Beethoven will transform both these themes in a wondrous range of keys , moods and figurations .
After its long absence , the piano begins its version of the exposition with an ascending chromatic scale ending with a long , high trill . Throughout , Beethoven uses this scale as an elegant call to attention ; whenever we hear it , we are being given notice that a new section of the movement is beginning . It will mark the opening of the development section and later the closing coda after the recapitulation .
The usual moment for the soloist ’ s big cadenza comes just before that coda . But here Beethoven has quashed the soloist ’ s customary right to improvise his or her own virtuosity . Fearing the jarring improvisations other soloists might make , the composer wrote in the score : “ Don ’ t play a cadenza , but attack the following immediately ”. He then carefully wrote out a brief series of variants on both his principal themes , the piano soon joined by the horns to blend the cadenza smoothly into the movement ’ s flow .
A complete contrast to the extroverted first movement , movement two is a sublime inward elegy in B Major , a remote key from the home tonality of E-flat . Two themes receive a quasi-variations treatment . The first and most important is the strings ’ grave , almost religious theme heard at the opening . The second theme is the downward cascading music with which the piano enters .
At the close of the movement , the pianist experiments hesitantly with a new melodic / rhythmic idea . Suddenly , the spark is struck , and the theme explodes into the exuberant rondo finale . Beethoven stresses the weak beats of the dancing 6 / 8-meter , giving his theme an eccentric , hobbling gait . An important element is the crisp dotted rhythm first heard in the horns ; this martial , drum-like motive returns us to the wartime world of the concerto ’ s birth . Near the end , Beethoven gives this to the timpani , in eerie duet with the soloist , before the concerto ’ s triumphant finish .
Instrumentation : Two flutes , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons , two horns , two trumpets , timpani , and strings .
Harmonielehre
John Adams
Born in Worcester , Massachusetts , February 15 , 1947 ; now living in Berkeley , California
After creating such attention-grabbing works in the Minimalist style as Shaker Loops , Grand Pianola Music , and Harmonium , John Adams suddenly found himself in the mid-1980s mired in an artistic dry spell . Though commissions were piling up — notably a major orchestral work for the San Francisco Symphony , where he had been appointed composer-in-residence — he could write nothing for 18 months . The issue seemed to revolve around his dissatisfaction with Minimalism — the stripped-down style of music pioneered by Steve Reich and Philip Glass that uses much repetition of clear , consonant harmonies driven by propulsive rhythmic patterns — and his uncertainty about the way forward . He described himself as “ a Minimalist who is bored with Minimalism .”
Finally , a dream broke his creative block . “ I ’ d had a vivid dream in which I was crossing the San Francisco Bay Bridge . In that dream , I looked out to see a huge oil tanker sitting in the water . As I watched , it slowly rose up like a Saturn Rocket and blasted out of the bay and into the sky . I could see the rust-colored metal oxide of its hull as it took off . Shortly after … I sat down in my studio to find , almost
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