Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3 | Dmytro Choni, Oksana Lyniv & Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine

Elegance and a search for truth: Dmytro Choni stood out with Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto at the Beethovenfest Bonn 2022, played by the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine conducted by Oksana Lyniv. The concert, performed in solidarity with the people of Ukraine, took place at the Opera Bonn on August 29, 2022.

(00:00) Intro
(00:39) I. Allegro con brio
(17:39) II. Largo
(27:17) III. Rondo. Allegro – Presto

Beethoven's Piano Concerto in C minor was far more serious and grandiose in style and character than his two earlier piano concertos – at least that was the view of composer Carl Czerny (1791 - 1857), who received free piano lessons from Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) as a boy during the years in which the 3rd Piano Concerto was composed. The first drafts of the Piano Concerto No. 3 were made in 1796, but Beethoven probably completed most of the composition between 1799 and 1800. The premiere took place in Vienna in 1803, and the first printed edition was published in 1804.

The Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 is the only one that Beethoven set in a minor key. It references Piano Concerto No. 24 (K. 491) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791), which is also in C minor. And thematically, too, there is a relationship between the two C minor piano concertos. Beethoven took the main theme of the opening movement from Mozart's 24th piano concerto and reworked it for his 3rd piano concerto – but the origin of its opening theme is obvious.

In addition to the Mozart reference, Beethoven also came up with an innovation in the 3rd Piano Concerto that already pointed ahead to the Romantic era. In purely formal terms, the Piano Concerto Op. 37 is no longer a pure virtuoso concerto, but rather a symphonic solo concerto. This concerto form developed in the course of the 19th century and is characterized by the close intertwining of the motivic-thematic development of orchestral parts and solo piano. This can already be found in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, for example, when the piano enters into a regular dialogue with the clarinets or timpani in the third movement.

Fun fact: At the premiere of the 3rd Piano Concerto on 5 April 1803, Beethoven himself played the solo piano part, and his composer friend Ignaz von Seyfried (1776 - 1841) turned the pages of the score for him. According to von Seyfried, however, the sheet music was empty except for a few Egyptian hieroglyphics that he did not understand. Beethoven had simply not yet managed to write down the piano part – and so he played it from memory or perhaps even improvised.

Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni was born in Kyiv in 1993 and received his first piano lessons at the age of four. Choni has won numerous important prizes for pianists, performs at high-profile music festivals and has played with many international orchestras and conductors. Regardless of his successes, Choni says of himself: "For me, being successful means constantly growing as a musician and as a person, and never ceasing to search for the truth in music."

The Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine was founded in 2017 as part of the Campus Project of Deutsche Welle and Beethovenfest Bonn. The co-founder was the renowned Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv, who has been the artistic director of the YSOU ever since. Lyniv sees the youth orchestra as a sustainable educational and cultural project that not only promotes classical music, but also aims to be an ambassador for Ukrainian culture in the world. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the 12- to 22-year-old musicians have fled their country to different regions. But for concerts, the young Ukrainian musicians come together and find a piece of their homeland again by making music together.

© DEUTSCHE WELLE 2022

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