In his concertos Beethoven joined in a sort of human expression that seems almost universal: a discourse of the individual and the group, or of leader and followers who sometimes work together in harmony and sometimes appear pitted one against the other (early definitions of the concerto, indeed, were divided as to which was the main idea of the genre-cooperation or conflict). In his concertos Beethoven typically cast himself as leader; the concerto was for him mainly a youthful preoccupation intimately bound up with his prowess and ambition as a public pianist. The hope is that a wide-ranging consideration of the historical context will serve to cast new light upon the music itself, which remains the central focus of this study.