Sunday afternoon was bright and sunny, but Andris Nelsons scheduled music in Beethoven’s dramatic key choice of C minor—the Third Piano Concerto (with Yefim Bronfman as soloist) and the ne plus ultra of C-minor scores, the Fifth Symphony. To be sure, these pieces end in C major (as was conventional at the time), befitting the sunny weather, but both pieces made their way to that conclusion in interesting ways. And the concert opened in C major with the Leonore Overture No. 2.
The overture was one of four attempts by Beethoven to find the perfect opening for his sole opera, originally entitled Leonore and later changed to Fidelio, by which, of course, it is known today. Despite the traditional numbering, this was the first overture Beethoven wrote for the premiere in 1805. He reworked it considerably, making it much more dramatic, though using many of the same thematic ideas. The early quotation of Florestan’s aria, “In des Lebens Frühlingstagen” in a comparatively dark key, and the rather extensive main section and development that follow, call for a wide dynamic range. Throughout the concert Nelsons makes much of the dynamic control that helps make the score so vivid.
The same is true of the Piano Concerto No. 3, a work that is explicitly an homage to Mozart’s piano concerto in the same key. Yet despite its hints of the Mozartean spirit, Beethoven’s work makes a large stride to his mature style; this is especially the wide dynamic range, both in dramatic outbursts and, especially, in the very quietest passages that become almost inaudible, especially in a large open-walled space like the Koussevitzky Music Shed. Here, soloist Yefim Bronfman brilliantly seconded the conductor’s reading with superbly controlled gradations of volume as he developed the small motives that make up the main theme of the first movement.
It may seem very familiar to us now, and even old-fashioned compared to what Beethoven had coming up fairly soon, but one reviewer complained that there was too much “striving for the new and surprising.” But in fact there was much that was new, and the soloist and orchestra on Sunday were very much in touch with it. These magical effects include the wonderful moment after the cadenza (where traditionally the soloist stopped playing): here the timpanist enters during the cadenza playing the two-note percussive theme heard on the timpani for the first time in the piece, and then then pianist joins with the full orchestra to close the movement with great force.
The serene second movement comes from a different world, one which Bronfman controlled totally, then gradually moved (without a break) into the playful charms of the rondo, everyone bringing out the sun (musically speaking) with energetic wit.
The Fifth Symphony (one hardly need mention the name of the composer) automatically gives special weight to the end of any concert on which it appears. It also attracts a large and more general audience than just about any other work in the repertory. Its continuous drive, its various ways of approaching C major before falling back to C minor again and again throughout its four movements made it, from the very beginning, a work that captured the imagination of listeners and fellow composers for more than two centuries.
And Andris Nelsons gave the Tanglewood audience all the adventure they surely expected of the piece, with the energy of the first four notes that become a driving, long-breathed theme; the second movement’s variations that keep turning unexpectedly to C major, then fading away in mysterious mists before the next variation; the rough humor of the scherzo, which ends on a deceptive cadence that becomes a long, tense build-up to the outburst of glorious C-major splendor at the beginning of the finale. And of course, Beethoven wasn’t finished even then. He approaches the recapitulation with another tense, hushed transition, growing from near silence to the climactic return and an extraordinary coda that reasserts the final C major so many times because the previous tensions requite it to fully convince the listener that C minor has been conquered and the sunshine of C major has prevailed.