Ludwig van BeethovenCoriolan Ouvertüre op. 62 Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Concerto no. 5 in E-flat Major op. 73 »Emperor« Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony no. 7 in A Major op. 92 Conductor Tugan Sokhiev/ PianoNicholas Angelich
An All-Beethoven Programme
The MCO has dedicated itself intensively to Beethoven’s music since its founding: the performances of Beethoven’s symphonies (the orchestra has played all nine with Principal Conductor Daniel Harding and with orchestra founder Claudio Abbado) regularly prove to be concert highlights for musicians and audiences. The live recordings of the second and third piano concertos with Martha Argerich were awarded a Grammy in 2006. And after the MCO made its debut with Fidelio at the Teatro Real in Madrid in April 2008, it was named “the best orchestra in the world” by Le Monde.
The MCO’s fate is shared by many others: whoever starts working on Beethoven’s music often can’t stop. The composer’s unusual biography has contributed to his being seen, more than any other composer, as exemplifying the myth of the heroic artist. His many illnesses (in particular the difficulties in hearing which began troubling him at the age of 27 and resulted in complete deafness), his stormy character, and of course his absolute dedication to his art are all details which lend themselves well to a kitschy, overdramatized retelling. But reading his letters or diaries, or the conversation books through which he communicated once he became deaf, is truly a moving experience.
For Beethoven, composition was a matter of the greatest intensity and attention. He sketched and fine-tuned, reworked and threw away. The product was always a new kind of a music, which showed no mercy to the composer himself, to the musicians, or to the audience: “What is difficult, is also beautiful, good, grand, etc.; everyone can see that this is the highest praise imaginable, because the difficult makes you work” wrote Beethoven in a letter from January 1817.
In February 2011, the MCO will perform two slightly different all-Beethoven programmes. Young Russian conductor Tugan Sokhiev will take the podium, and the soloists will be American pianist Nicholas Angelich and French pianist David Fray (born 1981). Both programmes will open with the Coriolanus Overture and will conclude with the Symphony No. 7; in between these two works, Mr. Angelich will perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in the first programme, and Mr. Fray will perform the Piano Concerto No. 3 in the second.
These four works are similar, both in terms of style and in terms of when they were composed. The Piano Concerto No. 3, which premiered in 1803, is the earliest, and the 7th Symphony, premiered exactly ten years later, the latest. These two dates circumscribe what is commonly known as Beethoven’s “heroic” period: in this phase, Beethoven focused especially on symphonic music, which became ever more dense and concentrated, and met with ever more approval.
The Coriolanus Overture was composed as stage music for an eponymous play by Beethoven’s contemporary Heinrich Joseph Collin. It depicts, in concentrated form, the character of the tragic hero. The Piano Concerto No. 3 is the only piano concerto in minor and was composed at the zenith of Beethoven’s career as a piano virtuoso. Beethoven composed his fifth and last piano concerto in 1809, as Napoleon was occupying Vienna. The 7th Symphony has a festive, lively character, and marks the last hurrah of Beethoven’s “heroic” style. Richard Wagner described this symphony as an “apotheosis of dance”.
