By the turn of the 18th century, Vienna, the musical center of Europe, the city of Mozart and Haydn, was ready for something new and exciting, and that’s what it got with the arrival of Beethoven. The country bumpkin from Bonn had come to town to make his fortune as a pianist, but soon he was writing his own music as well, taming new concepts of drama and tension and using them to infuse his scores as no one had ever done before.
One of the early large-canvas works from this period was the Piano Concerto No. 3, our featured work this Sunday.