Answer:
The concerto's sobriquet “Emperor” dates from Beethoven's time, and it is sometimes attributed to German-born English pianist and music publisher Johann Baptist Cramer, whom Beethoven reportedly regarded as the greatest pianist of the day.
Though it had been promised to Beethoven’s Leipzig publisher Breitkopf & Härtel, offers from other countries were by no means excluded, and a visit to the composer from the London publisher Muzio Clementi resulted in the English publication of the concerto already in November 1810, a few months before Breitkopf’s edition appeared, so that strictly speaking, Clementi’s is the first edition.
Beethoven establishes the lordly character of his “Emperor” Concerto in its opening moments, as three sonorous orchestral chords each give way to cadenza-like flourishes from the piano. This serves as a prelude to the usual orchestral paragraph, one of the grandest and longest in any concerto. A deeply expressive slow movement proceeds to the finale by way of an ingenious transition.
The title “Emperor,” by which Beethoven’s Fifth Piano Concerto has been known since the early 19th century, probably stems from one of the many apocryphal anecdotes that have come to us concerning the composer. According to this story, a French army officer stationed in Vienna attended the first performance of the work in the Austrian capital and was so moved by the grandeur of Beethoven’s music that he cried out: “C’est l’Empereur!” (“It is the Emperor!”)
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