Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Opus 73, "Emperor"

The year 1809 was a hard year in Vienna that had surrendered to Napoleon's army after being heavily bombed. There was a great shortage of money, food and commodities. Beethoven, who wrote his Piano Concerto No. 5, at the time, dedicated it to the Prince Rudolph of Austria. Like his 3rd Symphony, "The Heroic", this concerto also has a warlike character, and it ends with a victory. In spite of the obvious hardship he felt during the siege and the terrible bombings, he kept faith and transmitted his optimistic spirit to the concerto. Beethoven, who stayed trapped in Vienna and had a hard time going out for the countryside vacations he loved so much, and during which he created such wonderful music, sailed to other places in his imagination, places where only good wins.

The concerto opens with a solo playing of the pianist, and a militant, brave first movement on account of which this piece gained its nickname "The Emperor" (as in the "Moonlight Sonata", Beethoven was not the one who titled it). The second movement, in B major, is slow and beautiful, a lyric and magical adagio that leads, with no pause, to the concluding movement, a Rondo Allegro - a happy, excited movement with two themes serving equally - one melodic and circular, and the other vivid and eager. Together they bring this tremendous concerto to the final, impressive triumph Vienna experienced too - after a harder period it overcomes and finishes the 19th century as the cultural capital of the cheerful Europe of Romanticism.

Beethoven, who was one of the best pianists of his time, composed one of the greatest piano concertos, and saw to it that it would be his last one - a grand inspirational legacy, written by a person whose hearing was almost completely gone, but his sight was penetrating and profound.