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Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.1 in C, Op.15 (Brendel)

The most annoying thing about the Op.15 is how often it gets compared to the concertos of Haydn and Mozart – in its scope and vigour, it is pretty far ahead of what those two produced, and calling it a concerto in the “classical mould” (whatever that means) always comes across as a tiny bit disparaging. For a start, the Op.15 is huge; it is the second-longest of Beethoven’s concertos, falling just shy of the Emperor’s 38+ minutes. It’s also misnamed, as it’s the second concerto proper Beethoven wrote (the Concerto No.2 is the first). But what really stands out about the Op.15 is its sheer energy – there is something approaching a kind of jolly savagery in the outer movements, and the slow movement (the longest among Beethoven’s concertos) is one of Beethoven's most beautiful lyrical outpourings. The first movement features not just motivic trickery and a bunch of fun modulations, but an absurdly long cadenza that clocks in at just under 5 minutes (Beethoven actually wrote 3 cadenzas for this work, and it’s the longest one that’s usually played). It’s probably no surprise that the cadenza for this was written quite some time after the Op.15 was actually completed, from around the period he was writing the Emperor. The second movement, structured in a kind of compressed sonata form, is an extended showcase of the lyrical possibilities of the piano and clarinet, which engage in several lovely duets. (The clarinet was a relatively new instrument at the time, so it’s easy to see why Beethoven was so temped to show it off – in fact, all the other woodwinds, plus the trumpets/timp, don’t make a single sound in this movement, giving it a rather dark colour despite its sweetness.) The movement also ends with a coda whose massive size is fully justified by all the melodic beauty it’s laden with. The third movement is a full 600 measures of rhythmic joy – from the slippery slurs of the main theme, to the off-kilter accents of the first episode, the Style Hongrois trappings of the second episode, and the little woodwind jabs colouring the whole work – it’s consistently boisterous and propulsive and a little bit drunk. Really not the kind of stuff Mozart would have written. Brendel (accompanied superbly by the Vienna Phil under Rattle) puts in a performance here so thrillingly buoyant, arresting and natural that it’s actually kind of dangerous – if you listen to only this, you become convinced this is the only way the piece can be performed. Perhaps the nicest thing about this recording is how Brendel understands that the work is supposed to be funny – the slurs of the rondo theme in the 3rd movement are exaggerated so that the first semiquaver almost becomes an acciaccatura (29:31), the upbeat that opens the movement is made to sound like a downbeat (to give you rhythmic whiplash later on), and the first beats in each bar of the 2nd episode get a subtle agogic accent (32:08) to give the music a swagger that’s equal parts dramatic and tongue-in-cheek. And even though Brendel has acquired a reputation as an anti-virtuoso pianist, the playing, especially in the first movement, is lithe and powerful. It's hard not to hear the epic octave glissando at 8:55 and wish that every other pianist opted for the same (rather than breaking the run in the LH to hit the low G). The VPO is superb too – the tuttis are wonderfully balanced, and the strings in particular are very responsive (listen to those jabbing Abs in the rondo – 29:56 and similar).