ABSTRACT
For several decades now an amusing debate has been going on among the writers of record jacket notes as to whether the second movement of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto does or does not involve some association with the Orpheus legend. The common error included in synthesized statement above is calling the second movement of the Fourth Piano Concerto a "slow movement." True, as this Andante con moto is invariably performed in our time it comes across as a slow movement–indeed, sometimes a very, very slow movement. The another error in made-up sentence is the comparison of this movement with Orpheus taming the wild beasts with the music of his lyre. In Calzabigi the two parts of the Orpheus-in-Hades episode–Orpheus's encounter with the Furies and his breaking of the vow–are placed at the beginnings of acts II and III.
