# Why Am I Going Insane at this small segment from Beetheoven's Piano Concerto 5?



## romantique (May 13, 2021)

Unfortunately, I do not have the musical lexicon to know what I am talking about. Other than some piano lessons in childhood, all I have is my gut instinct, sensitivities and sensibilities to express myself in the area of music appreciation; so forgive my cluelessness.

But I have a question:

What is it about this brief particular segment in Beethoven's Emperor that drives me literally insane? As someone on You Tube said: "and for a while, the world was perfect."

This right here, from 35:37 to about 36:05.






What does this segment mean? And do we call it "segment" or some other thing? If so, would you nice trained musical people be so kind to tell me what that "thing" is?
How would you interpret this part and what exactly was Beethoven trying to convey here 'cause it sends me to the Heavens and back.

Thanks so much!


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## Monsalvat (11 mo ago)

It's basically a bunch of arpeggiated chords. A similar example that comes to mind would be this Chopin ballade (played by the same pianist here) at about 5:08: 




It's a dramatic moment but it's just fast right-hand octaves with some left-hand chords. So nothing too complicated in a theoretical sense. The Beethoven example is obviously a bit more involved but I think your reaction to it is not because of any groundbreaking work of Beethoven, but because it is an exciting, musical moment. 

As far as what this "segment" is, there are others who are better educated about this sort of thing than myself, but I see it as basically a transition back to the primary theme of the Rondo. The only musical material is the rapid figurations in the piano and some dotted rhythms in the orchestra. It serves as an impressive modulation from E minor to E flat major, the home key.

And as far as what does it "mean", or what Beethoven was trying to convey: I have no idea, that is a subjective and personal matter and I'll let you decide what it means to you!


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Besides Monsalvat's technical explanation, I think artistically there's a really powerful "flow" to this that involves the contrast between the repetition of the arpeggiated figures and the chord changes underneath it. The section also starts towards the low end of the piano's register at a rather quieter dynamic, both aspects creating a sense of anticipatory mystery. The fact that it repeats the figure 4 times, chord change, repeats the figure 4 times, and then on the next "set of 4" the chords jump around each time; so we've gone from anticipatory mystery to the established pattern of a rising figure to the "surprise" that jumps around to many different chords, preparing us to "expect the unexpected," so to speak, and then we get the arpeggiated figures both descending and ascending with a pretty large scale width that heightens the drama even more with its sweeping, "epic" quality. It finally lands on the upper range of the figure, repeats it again, but this time changes for the descending arpeggio (not sure exactly what the changes are; someone with a score or better ears than mine could tell) before the trill that leads into the next section. 

As for what it "means," I don't think you should be looking to any instrumental for external meaning. The only "meaning" in such music is the logical flow of ideas largely determined by formal and harmonic considerations and the emotional/aesthetic impressions they make on you. This isn't so much "meaning" as in the idea that Beethoven was necessarily trying to communicate any precise feeling, emotion, or aesthetic, but it's still a powerful thing to experience.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

I might also add that there's something to the effect that's created by how it slowly builds to the climax of those arpeggios in the high end of the piano's register. One way (that I rarely see discussed) how music achieves certain aesthetic effects is by our perception of the relationship between lower and higher-pitched notes, and it's not accident that most climaxes peak with rather high notes. Beethoven builds the anticipation towards reaching the climax even what is a relatively short section here, and it reaches the higher notes a few times before descending back down until it finally lines on the final high notes that it repeats several times before the final descend back down into the trill.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Welcome romantique! Much of what Eva wrote resonates with me. I disagree with Monslavat; It's not just a bunch of arpeggiated chords. Shortly before the passage you cite, those arpeggiations were introduced in a striking variation on the opening phrases of the principal theme — striking because the theme's usual swaggering stride there gives way to gentle, ornate lyricism. The passage you cite takes this lyrical turn, moves the arpeggiated figure to a lower register (see Eva's perceptive comments on the contrasting registers), and pumps it up with energy and urgency — overall following a variation on the original harmonic progression. One thing I find intriguing about the passage is that expressive sequence — a gentle, contemplative passage followed by an urgent one based on the same thought. I agree with Eva that the passage has no "external meaning." I would say, rather, that it has the shadow of such meaning, the form and shape of it unmoored from any extramusical referents. There are any number of coherent sequences of mental states that could cast a shadow in that form. For example, thinking of a loved one and then feeling that something urgent must be done on their behalf. The music means none of them, but it mimics their shape and pulls a sense of expressive plausibility from it, one that's impossible to disentangle from its purely musical coherence.

Note: I really wanted to think about the passage more thoroughly before writing anything, so the above is provisional.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Oh! _That_ segment.
Yeah, that was explained well in the Howard Howard & Fine text _Anthology of Musical Farce_. Apparently, when Beethoven submitted this concerto to the publisher there was one page extra in the manuscript, a page from an unfinished Piano Sonata (with the odd English title "Pappy Yawns" -- probably a reference to the composer's grandfather who was generally bored by his grandson's constant music making) that had inadvertently gotten inserted into the pages of the Concerto. You know that the composer had a reputation for being slovenly and disorganized. In any case, Beethoven never finished that Piano Sonata because one of the pages remained missing, and by the time it was discovered the composer had moved on to _Freude schöners _and_ Götterfunkens _and forgot about the sonata. But the missing page shows up every time someone plays this Fifth Piano Concerto. Wouldn't you know it. The very extraneous page upon which Beethoven was sketching his Sonata had on the back a drawing of the purple Emperor Butterfly. Or so Beethoven's publisher Johann Baptist Cramer discovered, providing the concerto with its title. Cramer suggested that Beethoven had sketched the insect while ambling about the countryside collecting ideas for what would become his _Pastoral_ Symphony. This last point has never been verified, but it does seem to be a fact that when the pianist/composer Frédéric Chopin saw the manuscript page while studying the Beethoven Concerto he originally had the butterfly picture upside down, played the musical passage from the upside down score sheet, and was inspired by it to compose his own Étude Op. 25, No. 9. At least, that's the crux of Howard, Howard, and Fine's argument.
Hope that helps restore your sanity.
Now, if I could only restore my own.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

I don’t think there’s any particular meaning here but a simple expansion of the whole piano concerto range which this particular piece did. This particular passage acts to drive the whole thing forward with increased mmentum, esp when played like this!


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