The Kamloops Symphony’s brilliant beginning to the 2012/2013 concert season is one of the most anticipated programs of the year for classical music enthusiasts and Beethoven fans in Revelstoke, Salmon Arm, Kamloops and neighbouring communities.
First on the slate is “Brilliant Beethoven,” which plays out at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 28 at the SASCU Rec Centre.
Experience the power and passion of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) and the innate lyricism of Franz Schubert (1797-1828); the suppressed anger sometimes heard in the music of Beethoven, the sunny disposition of Schubert’s music and the virtuosity of piano soloist Stéphane Lemelin.
Lemelin is well-known to audiences throughout Canada and regularly performs in the United States, Europe and Asia.
A guest soloist of the major Canadian orchestras, he is widely sought after as a recitalist and chamber music partner.
Lemelin holds a doctorate from Yale University, taught at the University of Alberta for more than 10 years, and since 2001 has been on the faculty of the School of Music of the University of Ottawa.
He is also a member of trio Hochelaga and artistic director of an annual chamber music festival held in Ontario.
“Brilliant Beethoven” includes two works by Beethoven, the Egmont Overture and Piano Concerto #5, and Schubert’s Symphony #4, known as the “tragic” symphony.
The overture is a set of incidental pieces for the 1787 play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
The subject of the music and dramatic narrative is the life and heroism of a 16th-century Dutch nobleman, the Count of Egmont.
The overture later became an unofficial anthem of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. The piece is a very good example of Beethoven’s passion; emphatically repeated phrases, deep minor undertones, and expressive countermelodies wonderfully demonstrating Beethoven’s romantic fervour.
Beethoven’s last of five piano concertos had imperial connections, and something about it was both innovative and martial – a sign of the times.
In May 1809, Vienna was once again under attack by Napoleon. Haydn, in retirement in the city, was to die at the end of the month, while most of the leading families, including the imperial family, had taken refuge elsewhere.
During the bombardment, Beethoven had sheltered in his brother’s cellar. It was in these circumstances that he worked on his new piano concerto.
Schubert’s symphonic career spanned a mere 18 years, during which time he set about writing a symphony at least 13 times.
His endeavours occupied him intermittently from 1811, when he was a lad of 14, to the last weeks of his life in 1828. Of the 13 attempts, only seven yielded complete, finished symphonies; for whatever reason, six symphonies were begun but left unfinished.
Those he did finish are now, for the most part, well-loved repertoire pieces which offer scarcely any clue as to why the others should have been abandoned.
There is no mention anywhere of a performance of Symphony No. 4 in C minor “Tragic” during his lifetime.
It is known, however, that it was composed in April 1816 when Schubert was 19 years old and was premiered in Leipzig in November, 1849 – more than two decades after the composer’s death.
Tickets are available at Kamloops Live! box office, toll free at 1-866-374-5483, at Wearabouts or at the door. For more information, visit www.kamloopssymphony.com.