A liberal humanist who embraced democratic ideals, Beethoven felt contempt for the aristocrats on whose patronage he depended. He resented the fact that the women he desired and sometimes pursued — his pupils, his employers’ female relations, the educated ladies who frequented the fashionable salons — were unattainable because of his inferior social status. His disenchantment with Napoleon began in 1804, when the revolutionary hero, that self-styled champion of the people, declared himself emperor. By May 1809, when French troops invaded Vienna, Beethoven resorted to hiding in the basement of his brother’s house, covering his head with pillows to preserve what remained of his hearing.

Beethoven believed in a higher form of nobility. “I much prefer the empire of the mind, and I regard it as the highest of all spiritual and worldly monarchies,” he declared in 1814. Heroism for him entailed liberation, not domination. He would have loathed the nickname for his Piano Concerto No. 5: “Emperor,” the coinage of an English music publisher.

He had made his name in Vienna as a virtuoso, notorious for his brutal performance style. The wigless young upstart wreaked unintentional havoc on the fragile keyboard instruments of the era. A genius improviser, he seldom transcribed the spectacular cadenzas, fantasias and fugues that flowed from his brain to his fingers: Why bother to write them down when he was the only person capable of playing them?

He completed his fifth and final piano concerto in 1809, but by the time it received its premiere in 1811, he was too deaf to perform it in public. He wrote out the many challenging cadential passages and added an emphatic instruction to the soloist: no improvised cadenzas, not in the conventional places and not anywhere else. Although his career as a concertizing pianist was over, he knew exactly how he wanted this concerto to sound. He never wrote another.

A Closer Listen

Cast in the conventional three movements, the concerto begins with an exuberant and virtuosic Allegro in the home key of E-flat major. It’s about 20 minutes long and functions as a microcosm of the entire concerto. Dynamic and complex, the main theme evolves as the pianist and orchestra subject it to various figurative and harmonic procedures. The second theme begins in B minor and then shifts to B major before finally landing on the expected key of B-flat major. The third theme is assigned exclusively to the piano, according to Beethoven’s usual custom. The Allegro concludes with a dramatic coda, which returns to the first theme and eventually restores the home key.

The luminous second movement, in B major, features a proto-Chopinesque piano interlude caressed by hushed strings and gentle winds. If you notice a weirdly familiar tune, your ears aren’t deceiving you: Leonard Bernstein probably based the melody for “Someday,” from West Side Story, on this poignant passage.

The finale is marked attaca, which means that it follows the central Adagio without a pause. This closing Allegro is a seven-part rondo, bursting with dazzling scalar passages, frequent key shifts and lively call-and-response interplay between the orchestra and soloist.

The Composer Speaks

“We have passed through a great deal of misery. I tell you that since May 4th, I have brought into the world little that is connected; only here and there a fragment. The whole course of events has affected me body and soul…. What a disturbing, wild life around me; nothing but drums, cannons, men, misery of all sorts.” —Ludwig van Beethoven (from a letter to his publisher dated July 29, 1809)

In spring 1945, as the end of World War II approached, Shostakovich announced to the press that he was working on “a symphony of victory with a song of praise.” He suggested that this would be a choral work representing “the awakening of the masses,” possibly even a tribute to Lenin, in the spirit of his wildly popular Symphony No. 7, “Leningrad.” His Symphony No. 9 was meant to be momentous — if not the Soviet answer to Beethoven’s Ninth, at least something along the same lines, something recognizably triumphant.

Instead, he presented a surprisingly compact work, shorter than some of the movements in his two preceding symphonies. He predicted that “musicians will love to play it, and critics will delight in blasting it.” The mood was humorous, playful, not even remotely heroic. The style was purely abstract and Neoclassical, almost Haydenesque at times. The Ninth is the only one of Shostakovich’s symphonies to include a conventional first-movement repeat.

Given Shostakovich’s often tense relationship with Joseph Stalin and his henchmen, it’s hard to say whether the composer assumed that this studiously apolitical work would provoke or appease the authorities. At first, the reception was merely disappointing. Not long after Yevgeny Mravinsky led the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in the world premiere, on November 3, 1945 — in a concert that was also broadcast live on state radio — performances of the symphony simply fizzled out. Still, Shostakovich seemed to have escaped any real punishment; on the contrary, he received an Order of Lenin, his third Stalin Prize, and a vacation home.

By the beginning of 1946, however, Stalin’s right-hand man, Central Committee Secretary Andrei Zhdanov, was waging an all-out war against “bourgeois degeneracy,” which culminated in the Zhdanov Doctrine: “The only conflict that is possible in Soviet culture is the conflict between good and best.” By October 1946, speakers at the Composers’ Plenum condemned the Ninth for its “ideological weakness,” among other crimes. Justifiably fearful of losing his career, possibly even his life, Shostakovich wrote a groveling letter to Stalin.

This would not be the last time that he felt compelled to abase himself. In the late 1940s, he apologized at least twice to Zhdanov and an assemblage of his fellow composers, admitting that his work had suffered from “many failures and serious setbacks” and vowing “to work harder and better” and “accept critical instruction.” Despite these concessions, the Ninth was banned for the remainder of Stalin’s life and not recorded until 1956.

A Closer Listen

When heard without any extramusical expectations, the Ninth is witty, warm and engaging. Leonard Bernstein adored its subversive humor, likening the symphony to “sitting down to a big serious banquet and being served hot dogs and potato chips.” It consists of five movements, the last three played without a break, although the thematic flavor of each is distinct. The symphony opens in the home key with a giddy Allegro that features a goofily endearing piccolo melody and waggish brass blasts. A melancholy clarinet solo launches the gentle and hesitant second movement, set in B minor. The final linked movements run the emotional gamut: from an agitated, almost hysterical G major Presto; to a self-consciously pompous Largo in B-flat minor; to an E-flat Allegretto that starts out sunny, then darkens and finally casts off its shadows with a snare-snapping, tambourine-tapping, madcap dance.

The Composer Speaks

“My Ninth Symphony is very difficult to perform. But from the very first rehearsals, the orchestra dealt easily with all the technical difficulties and achieved a high level of artistry and expressiveness. This symphony also has a number of solos; there are big solos for all the woodwind instruments, the trumpet, the trombones and the violin. These solos should be free, expressive and light. This is especially true of the bassoon, which is heard throughout the entire fourth and fifth movements. Bassoonist Vorobyov succeeded brilliantly with this far-from-easy task…. The orchestra performed superbly both in individual groups and as a whole. I repeat, the orchestra’s work on the Ninth Symphony gave me immense enjoyment.”—Dmitri Shostakovich (describing the premiere)