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| Yefim Bronfman |
On my birthday at the end of February I headed into Toronto for a Beethoven double-header: Piano Concerto #2 & Piano Concerto #4. The play-by-play was provided by Tom Allen from CBC Radio. As he pointed out the two works really contrast. #2 is rooted in structures that sound much like direct inspirations from Mozart with a relatively polite bounciness. The piano largely enhances the orchestra and the other way around too. #4 however is the much more emotive Beethoven we are maybe more familiar with. It is a significant upgrade to the piano concerto. The piano and the orchestra are in a conversation where each provides important input. Beethoven already had problems with his hearing at this stage and one wonders if the dynamic range from soft to loud reflects that.
The pianist was the highly accomplished Yefim Bronfman. The concert consisted of just these two pieces with no intermission and started at 6:30pm. I got home at a reasonable hour and was able to get enough shut-eye to function well the next day.
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| Angela Hewitt |
About three weeks later I went to hear the Beethoven #5 piano concerto, the so-called "Emperor". This time the player was Angela Hewitt, born in Ontario who lives in Europe. Armed with the sonic info from the first concert I heard the Emperor in a different way than I had in the past. It is a bit of straddler of Beethoven eras perhaps. Evocative but also formal in a way that the 4th does not seem to be constrained by.
Just like contemporary big influencers like Elvis, the Beatles and The Who, Beethoven remains a giant and a reference point for almost all composers who have followed in the classical sphere. Even the atonal composers owe some debt to him.
There may well be a scientific way to demonstrate that Beethoven's music does tame the savage beast within us but subjectively for me there is no composer who does it so well, taking me through the variety of emotions that I experience and laying them back down in an order that helps me to take up my daily life with some peace and acceptance. A great gift certainly for me and I hope for many others.
For recordings, I really like Alfred Brendel and Artur Rubinstein, but you can also check out Rudolf Serkin, Vladimir Horowitz and the myriad of more contemporary pianists out there.
