At the time Beethoven was composing the Fourth Concerto in 1805–1806, he was also working on or had already finished the “Appassionata” Sonata (Op. 57), the “Razumovsky” Quartets (Op. 59), the Fourth Symphony (Op. 60), and the Violin Concerto (Op. 61). As his biographer Maynard Solomon points out, such a burst of creativity may have been a reaction to his struggle with his only opera, Fidelio (then called Leonore), which had “dammed up work on other projects.” Such productivity was also undoubtedly related to the financial comfort that Beethoven was experiencing, owing not only to pledged support from Princes Lichnowsky, Razumovsky, Lobkowitz, and Archduke Rudolph, but also to both a local and foreign public that clamored to buy his scores. Despite this, however, Beethoven continued to have contentious relationships with both his benefactors and his publishers, and he was more often than not likely to express his frustration in extreme “us vs. them” terms, almost always defining himself as the victim of Philistine oppressors.
The reading of biography into any abstract work of art can be a tricky affair, but in the case of the Fourth Piano Concerto, broadly stated issues of power and control are very much in evidence beyond the fact that these are the basic premises of the concertato style that defines the genre as a whole, a term that at various times has meant both “bringing together” or “joining” as well as “fighting” or “contending.” There can be no question that the Fourth Concerto is to a greater than usual degree about confrontation and victory, the latter that of the artist. Beethoven makes this clear in his brilliant opening (Allegro moderato), in which the pianist takes charge immediately, usurping the traditional orchestral annunciation. Much has been made of these opening bars, not least in their rhythmic relationship to the motto theme of the Fifth Symphony, allegedly signifying “Fate knocking at the door.” Unlike the powerful and terse Fifth Symphony motif, however, the opening piano statement here is articulated piano (“soft”) and dolce (“sweet”), an understatement that nonetheless seems to “walk softly and carry a big stick.”
Such comparisons hold up even better in the second movement (Andante con moto), which has been more or less accepted for some time as depicting the confrontation of the poet-musician Orpheus against the Furies. It is a profound utterance in the most compact form, a solo piano pitted against a complement of strings, reminiscent in this respect of the solo and tutti elements of the concerto grosso genre. Beethoven communicates directly through minimal forces; the piano responds softly to the forte “bark” of the strings, gradually subdues these hostile opponents, dissolves into a cadenza, and gently fades una corda—into some indefinable place. The intimacy of the moment, however, is abruptly altered by a segue into the final movement (Rondo: Vivace), which celebrates the “victory” with typically Beethovenian buoyancy.
—Helen Greenwald
“I was composing in the hospital, then I left the hospital and continued writing at my summer house—I just could not tear myself away from it. It’s one of those works that just completely carried me away, and maybe even one of my few compositions that seemed completely clear to me from the first note to the last.” The effort to compose his 15th Symphony took nearly all of Dmitri Shostakovich’s declining strength.
The 15th is unusual for Shostakovich’s work as a symphonist in several ways. It features quotations from other composers, including the overture to Gioachino Rossini’s opera William Tell in the first movement to clear echoes of Wagner in the finale in a kind of collage technique that he had not previously employed. It lacks a descriptive title, unlike his symphonies nos. 2, 3, 7, and three of the four written just before it: the 11th (“The Year 1905”), 12th (“The Year 1917”), and 13th (“Babi Yar”). Unlike his previous two symphonies, it is scored for orchestra alone, without voices or texts of any kind. Moreover, the 15th includes (in the second and third movements) music organized according to the 12-tone method, which Shostakovich used sparingly in some of his late works and which had virtually been banned from Soviet music as a decadent, formalist, and inaccessible Western import.
To his close friend Isaac Glikman, the composer joked ironically that the 15th Symphony was “turning out to be lacking in ideals” (“bezideinaya”), a label often applied by Communist Party officials to work they found politically deficient.
The symphony is more purely “abstract” and enigmatic music than Shostakovich had recently written in the symphonic form, and is more rhapsodic in structure. The first movement, Allegretto, combines the manic energy of the William Tell motif with a humorous, sarcastic character recalling some of the composer’s early works; the composer called it, perhaps ironically, “just a toy shop.” In the somber, mournful second movement, the orchestral forces are often reduced to chamber size and to solo voices. A funeral march builds to a massive climax with large percussion forces before receding into a heavenly calm. Squealing and laughing woodwinds dominate the grotesque, darkly humorous scherzo, creating a sort of frantic dance atmosphere.
The fourth movement opens with three references to Richard Wagner, beginning with the “fate” motif from the Ring cycle. The solo timpani line that follows suggests the rhythm of “Siegfried’s Funeral March” from the last Ring opera, Götterdämmerung. And the three notes (A-F-E)
played by the first violins at the end of the introductory Adagio echo the opening notes of the Tristan and Isolde Prelude. In the Allegretto, a pleasantly lyrical theme meanders through thinly scored string, woodwind, and brass passages. Then the mood darkens with the entry of the sinister marching passacaglia in the low strings. Eventually the lyrical theme joins in, and then again the Wagnerian motif. The relentless passacaglia theme builds to what Krzystof Meyer has described as a “soul-searing climax,” and then the music begins to fade and fragment into a weirdly ethereal coda, reminiscent of the Fourth Symphony, with knocking instruments tapping out what sounds like the ticking of a clock pronouncing the end of time, or asking a question.
The Symphony No. 15 stands as an encyclopedia of Shostakovich’s masterful manipulation of the orchestra as an endless source of drama, shifting moods, vivid contrasts, philosophical depth, and emotional expression. The premiere was a triumphant occasion, even though Kirill Kondrashin was too ill to conduct as scheduled and was replaced by Shostakovich’s son Maxim. Many of the stars of the Soviet musical firmament attended. By this time, Shostakovich’s health had worsened; he had suffered a second heart attack in September, near the date of his 65th birthday, and came out on stage only with difficulty to acknowledge the long ovation at the premiere.
—Harlow Robinson