Piano Concerto no. 4 in G major, op. 58

Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto was the last concerto in which he appeared publicly as the pianist. Schumann remembered listening to it in such absorption that he was afraid to move or even breathe. That response suggests the work’s singular place in the repertoire: its power comes not from display alone, but from the unusual intimacy with which piano and orchestra seem to discover one another. He began the concerto in 1805 and finished it by July 1806, playing it privately from the manuscript at Prince Lobkowitz’s palace in March 1807. The public premiere came on 22 December 1808 at the Theater an der Wien, in the long benefit concert that also introduced the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the Mass in C major and the Choral Fantasy; Beethoven took the solo part himself only after Ferdinand Ries and Friedrich Stein each withdrew. Johann Friedrich Reichardt wrote afterwards of the work’s unusual difficulty and of the perfection of Beethoven’s playing.