Piano Concerto No.1 in C major Op.15 (1798)

Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.1 was not his first piano concerto. His first ever was written in Bonn when he was no more than 14. His first mature piano concerto, the earliest of the great series of five, is the one we know as Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat major Op.19 which was first performed by the composer in Vienna in 1795. The Piano Concerto No.1 in C major Op.15 was written in 1798, three years after the B flat major but possibly not before Beethoven completed a thorough revision of the earlier work. Anyway, although they were both published in 1801, the Concerto in C major was issued a few months before the other – which explains the anomaly in the numbering. Of the two, Beethoven preferred this later one in C major, perhaps because there is more of himself in it and less of Mozart. Certainly, unlike its predecessor in B flat major and even its successor in C minor, it does not follow any particular Mozart masterpiece as a model.

It is true that the opening of the first movement is not unlike that of Mozart’s Piano Concerto K.467, also in C major, and that the four-note rhythm of the first bars echoes through the first movement in much the same way as the corresponding motif in the Mozart. Beethoven, however, is peculiarly and characteristically obsessive about it. He interrupts the second subject with it, in a canon on bassoon and oboe and then on the whole orchestra, and he makes a fanfare of it to herald the first entry of the soloist – who, however, has a wittily independent spirit and does not reply in the same terms. Although the pianist is happy to repeat the second subject and to introduce several new ideas, it is left to the orchestra to end the exposition with the inevitable four-note rhythm. The orchestra would obviously like to base the development on it too. But again the soloist avoids it, admitting to taking an interest in the idea only just before the recapitulation in a harmonically inspired dialogue with the horn section. The piano takes it up again in the cadenza, more or less obsessively depending on which one of Beethoven’s three alternatives is chosen.

It cannot be coincidence that the first four notes of the strings in the second movement are in that same rhythmic pattern, although they are there only as a background to the main theme on the piano and are much slowed down. But in this serene Largo there are no obsessions and no teasing of the orchestra by the soloist. It is the piano which, with the willing help of the first clarinet, supplies most of the melodic and expressive interest here – in the main theme itself, in the apparently spontaneous improvisations round it and in the enterprisingly decorative middle section. In the closing bars, however, pizzicato strings and staccato wind make a last allusion to the familiar rhythmic pattern.

A combination of rondo and scherzo like the final Allegro scherzando is a more appropriate place to indulge a sense of humour. The main theme itself is cheerful enough but the most inspired examples of the soloist’s wit are in the episodes between its several reappearances. In the first episode the pianist takes up the new theme introduced by the violins, repeats it incongruously in the bass and then makes an elaborate cross-hands joke of it. In the second episode the pianist introduces what sounds like another new theme but is in fact a rhythmically provocative variant on a phrase from the main theme. The oboes have a sense of humour too, as they demonstrate just before end where they and two horns pronounce a solemn Adagio cadence, inviting the rest of the orchestra to sweep it unceremoniously aside in a final burst of energy.