BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, ‘'Emperor’'
SCHUBERT: Impromptu No. 2 in E-flat major, D 899 (encore)

András Schiff (piano)
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Conducted by Herbert Blomstedt

One of the world’s oldest orchestras, conducted by one of its closest collaborators, joins forces with Sir András Schiff to perform Beethoven's magisterial Fifth Piano Concerto.
Few composers have altered the course of Western music as radically as Beethoven: not only did he revolutionise the sound of the piano and the orchestra, greatly expanding their expressive possibilities, he also transformed the fundamental idea of who a composer was. He turned someone who essentially provided music for a specific occasion or entertainment into a man whose art addressed some of humanity's deepest thoughts and loftiest ideals. This shift was quickly recognised by his contemporaries: the writer E.T.A Hoffmann said that Beethoven's music 'unveils before us the realm of the mighty and the immeasurable.'

BBC Radio 3's Andrew McGregor is joined by Richard Wigmore, writer and broadcaster with a special interest in the music of Beethoven and his contemporaries in 18th and 19th Century Vienna. Show less