Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 | Alice Sara Ott, Nathalie Stutzmann & the London Symphony Orchestra

Beethoven's only piano concerto in a minor key and one of the first piano concertos in which the orchestra and soloist are equal partners. Here, Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 is performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Nathalie Stutzmann with Alice Sara Ott on piano. The concert was recorded on November 10, 2022, at the Barbican Center, home of the London Symphony Orchestra.

(00:00) I. Allegro con brio
(17:13) II. Largo
(26:59) III. Rondo: Allegro

The Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 is said to have electrified the audience at its premiere on April 5, 1803. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827), a well-known piano virtuoso at the time, sat at the piano himself. He had asked his friend Ignaz Xaver von Seyfried to turn the sheet music during the performance. Unlike the orchestral parts, however, he had not yet written down the solo. Apart from a few marks that were illegible to his friend and some notations on how the piece was to progress, the sheets are said to have been completely blank. Whether Beethoven was in a hurry — as was often the case — and thus improvised the performance, or whether he played from memory and was having a laugh with his friend, is not known for certain.

Of Beethoven's five piano concertos, only the third is in a minor key. To be more precise, it is in C minor, inspired by Mozart's C minor Concerto K. 491. And yet Beethoven liked to experiment with classical forms and musical motifs. This is why this third piano concerto is also described as a symphonic solo concerto. This concerto form developed during the 19th century and is characterized by the close interweaving of the motivic and thematic development of the orchestral parts and the solo piano. In the final movement, the Rondo Allegro, Beethoven switches from the rather somber and sad key of C minor to E-flat major, bringing the concerto to a joyful and virtuosic conclusion.

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