Beethoven Piano Concertos 1 & 5

For his first public performance in Vienna, the young lion from the provinces wanted to make the biggest possible splash with his new piano concerto.

Not much more than a dozen years later, though, when he composed his last concerto, Beethoven’s deafness meant he was very rarely performing at all. You would never guess at his despair: this mighty work, on a far greater scale than its predecessors, is one of his most epic utterances.