Moto Verte No.487 From Novembre 2014

Leif Ove Andsnes has treated his survey of the piano concertos of Ludwig van Beethoven as a journey of musical and historical significance, and this final CD in the series presents the Piano Concert No. 5 in E flat major (shorn of its nickname, "Emperor"), and the Choral Fantasy in C minor as a destination. It is Andsnes' position that the Fifth Piano Concerto was intended by Beethoven to be an act of defiance against Napoleon, so the work is not a glorification of imperial aims, but the opposite. Similarly, the concerto-like Choral Fantasy is an expression of liberation from oppression, and a musical declaration of Beethoven's humanist values.