Ex. 11-2: Adagio un poco moto (fragment)

The second movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major (Op. 73), known as the "Emperor" Concerto. Composed in 1809, while Napoleon's army was attacking Vienna. Beethoven took shelter in his brother's cellar, covering his ears with pillows to protect his already declining hearing. In a letter to his publishers he wrote that there was nothing around him but drums, cannons, and misery of every kind.

The movement is in B major, a key far from the concerto's home key of E-flat major. The distant key helps give the slow movement a quiet, calm mood, apart from the music around it.

This was the last piano concerto Beethoven completed, and the first where he could not perform the solo part himself due to his hearing loss. Instead, his patron and student Archduke Rudolf played the solo part at a private premiere in January 1811.

The nickname "Emperor" was not Beethoven's own; it is traditionally credited to the pianist and publisher Johann Baptist Cramer, though its true origin is unknown.

Audiences did not like it at first, but Franz Liszt later helped make it popular.

Note: This version is an excerpt from the original, adapted for sight-singing practice.

From the album La Folle Journée 2020: Beethoven by Jean-François Heisser and the Orchestre de chambre Nouvelle-Aquitaine (2020)
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