Program Booklet
Sunday morning: Beethoven 5
Sunday, November 24
11:00
hour until approximately 12:15 p.m.
Start your Sunday morning without What's on, but with a fresh head full of musical sparks. This edition you will hear Beethoven's Fifth, a piece of music that can take on the whole world.
Programme
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Piano Concerto in a, op. 54 (1845)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony no. 5 in c, op. 67 (1808)
Allegro con brio
Andante con moto
Scherzo: Allegro
Allegro - Presto
What are you going to listen to?
Comprehensive fantasy
Robert Schumann could have become an excellent pianist had he not been too zealous. By using ingenious devices to perfect his fingers, he damaged his hands to the point where he had to abandon a career as a solo pianist. But as a composer, the piano remained his favorite instrument, and during 1841 he wrote an extensive fantasy for piano and orchestra to the delight of his wife Clara, who was herself a successful concert pianist. However, it was not until 1845 that he added two movements to it, turning it into a complete piano concerto. The premiere took place at the end of 1845 in their hometown of Dresden, of course with Clara as soloist.
Those who hear the Piano Concerto in its entirety hardly notice that the first movement, with its classical close-knit structure, is originally a fantasy. The Last movement is a cheerful but really romantically elaborated rondo. In between, Schumann wrote a subtle middle movement that really lives up to its name Intermezzo . It is a small and simple interlude, like a resting point between the two large-scale corner movements.
Legend of fate
Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is surrounded by the most fanciful legends. How terrible the composer's suffering had to be. Nearly deaf, desperately searching for true love, and struggling with his progressive views on music. And then also a premiere that ended in failure because the audience did not understand the depth of the music. The famous opening bars, according to his secretary Anton Schindler, Beethoven is said to have interpreted as, "so fate knocks at the door. But the truth is significantly more unruly. The failure of the first performance in late 1808 was primarily due to the fact that it took place during one of Beethoven's infamous monster concerts in an unheated hall, where the audience, blue with cold, shivered as they listened to the bizarrely ill-prepared notes. Subsequent concerts did bring the great success, and it was his most played orchestral work during his lifetime.
Beethoven himself did not reveal anything about the how and why of this symphony. Actually, the most extraordinary thing is that, along with the Third symphony , it was groundbreakingly innovative. But where the Third was still received with some reservation, the Fifth had overwhelming success after its unsuccessful premiere. Apparently Beethoven had managed to win over a large audience with his radically new ideas. And to think that in this symphony he still follows the structures of the classical symphony of Mozart and Haydn. For example, the first movement still has the usual sonata form with two themes set opposite each other along the usual paths. But within this, Beethoven goes completely his own way. The first theme is no more than a single motif, which will dominate the entire movement as a motto of four notes. And in the other movements, too, the composer seeks the outer limits of form and structure. It makes the symphony a benchmark in a musical revolution that would leave its mark well into the twentieth century.
Kees Wisse
Prefer it on paper? Download a condensed printable version of this program.
Biographies
Residentie Orkest The Hague
Anja Bihlmaier
Javier Perianes
The Residentie Orkest offers the conductor and soloist at this concert a linocut by The Hague artist Mariska Mallee.
Fun Fact
Beethoven's original tombstone has the only text: Beethoven.
RO QUIZ
Q: Our founder Henri Viotta was also...?-
Conductor, architect & cellist
Good answer: conductor, lawyer & composer
Henri Viotta was the son of physician-musician J.J. Viotta, known for several folk songs and the Sinterklaas song "See the moon shines through the trees. Viotta jr. initially planned to pursue music only as a hobby, so he registered as a lawyer in Amsterdam. But the blood ran where it couldn't go and after a year he devoted himself entirely to music. He was known as a reviewer, director of several musical societies and the Royal Conservatoire The Hague and from 1904 as conductor of the Residentie Orkest, founded by himself. He also made a name for himself as a composer with string quartets, sonatas for violin and for cello, a cello concerto, a mass and several symphonic works.
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Conductor, chemist & piano tuner
Good answer: conductor, lawyer & composer
Henri Viotta was the son of physician-musician J.J. Viotta, known for several folk songs and the Sinterklaas song "See the moon shines through the trees. Viotta jr. initially planned to pursue music only as a hobby, so he registered as a lawyer in Amsterdam. But the blood ran where it couldn't go and after a year he devoted himself entirely to music. He was known as a reviewer, director of several musical societies and the Royal Conservatoire The Hague and from 1904 as conductor of the Residentie Orkest, founded by himself. He also made a name for himself as a composer with string quartets, sonatas for violin and for cello, a cello concerto, a mass and several symphonic works.
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Conductor, lawyer & composer
Good answer: conductor, lawyer & composer
Henri Viotta was the son of physician-musician J.J. Viotta, known for several folk songs and the Sinterklaas song "See the moon shines through the trees. Viotta jr. initially planned to pursue music only as a hobby, so he registered as a lawyer in Amsterdam. But the blood ran where it couldn't go and after a year he devoted himself entirely to music. He was known as a reviewer, director of several musical societies and the Royal Conservatoire The Hague and from 1904 as conductor of the Residentie Orkest, founded by himself. He also made a name for himself as a composer with string quartets, sonatas for violin and for cello, a cello concerto, a mass and several symphonic works.
Good answer: conductor, lawyer & composer
Henri Viotta was the son of physician-musician J.J. Viotta, known for several folk songs and the Sinterklaas song "See the moon shines through the trees. Viotta jr. initially planned to pursue music only as a hobby, so he registered as a lawyer in Amsterdam. But the blood ran where it couldn't go and after a year he devoted himself entirely to music. He was known as a reviewer, director of several musical societies and the Royal Conservatoire The Hague and from 1904 as conductor of the Residentie Orkest, founded by himself. He also made a name for himself as a composer with string quartets, sonatas for violin and for cello, a cello concerto, a mass and several symphonic works.
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