War Reached Vienna

The imminence of war reaching Vienna itself was felt in early 1809. In April Beethoven had completed writing his Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73, which the musicologist Alfred Einstein has described as “the apotheosis of the military concept” in Beethoven’s music. Archduke Rudolf left the capital with the Imperial family in early May, prompting Beethoven’s piano sonata ‘’Les Adieux’’, (Sonata No. 26, Op. 81a), actually entitled by Beethoven in German “Das Lebewohl”(“ The Farewell”), of which the final movement, ’’Das Wiedersehen” (‘’The Return’’), is dated in the manuscript with the date of Rudolf’s homecoming of 30 January 1810.