The APO completes its disrupted Beethoven Symphony cycle with performances of the 8th and the 9th.
The Auckland Philharmonia's performance of Beethoven's Choral Symphony Photo: Adrian Malloch
The Auckland Philharmonia had planned to perform the complete cycle of nine Symphonies over the course of 9 days as a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth back in 2020. The Covid pandemic stopped that and so the orchestra has been performing the four concerts one by one as they can.
Joining the orchestra for the performance of the 'Choral' Symphony are soprano, Kirstin Sharpe; mezzo, Sally-Anne Russell; tenor, Manase Latu; and baritone Samuel Dundas along with members of Voices New Zealand, the New Zealand Youth Choir, the New Zealand Secondary Students Choir and The Graduate Choir New Zealand.
Giordano Bellincampi conducts.
Bellincampi talked to Bryan Crump about finishing the cycle at last.
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No 8 in F
When asked by a student why his 7th symphony was more enthusiastically received than tonight’s 8th, Beethoven had a snappy response: ‘That’s because the eighth is so much better!’
The leading musical periodical of the time described the 8th Symphony’s reception after its premiere in 1814:
"The applause that it received was not accompanied by the enthusiasm which distinguishes a work that gives universal delight; in short—as the Italians say—it did not create a furor. The reviewer is of the opinion that the reason does not lie in weaker or less artistic workmanship, but partly in the faulty judgment which permitted this symphony to follow the [Seventh] … If this symphony should be performed alone hereafter, we have no doubt of its success."
This is the only one of the nine symphonies that doesn’t contain a Scherzo … it has a Minuet instead. However, Giordano Bellincampi describes the symphony as a whole as a Scherzo – a playful joke.
Beethoven himself conducted the work, each movement of which is mark by interesting and original quirks.
The first movement hurls us straight into the theme without a jot of introduction.
Listen out for the metronomic nature of the second movement: there’s much speculation that this is a tease of Beethoven’s on-again-off-again friend Maelzel who’d recently refined the mechanics of the metronome. You’ll also note, this is an allegretto scherzando as opposed to a traditional slow movement.
In the third movement a minuet and trio displaces a scherzo.
Grove describes the fourth movement as: "…the great movement of the symphony. It is pure Beethoven in his most individual and characteristic vein, full of those surprises and unexpected effects, those mixtures of tragedy and comedy, not to say farce, which make his music so true a mirror of human life, equal in his branch of the art to the great plays of Shakespeare in his – and for the same reasons."
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No 9 in D minor, Choral
The musical landmark that is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was being actively plotted by the composer eight years before its 1824 premiere – with some material sketched out as far back as 1812.
As a now-unquestioned fixture in the musical firmament, it's easy to forget that the work has delighted and puzzled in equal measure. While its first outing received a standing ovation the mixed critical response foreshadowed debate that would be ongoing.
A poetically patronising critic writing nearly three decades later described it as "the genius of the great man upon the ocean of harmony without the compass which had so often guided him to his haven of success; the blind painter touching the canvas at random."
Berlioz, a noted critic as well as composer, voiced the counter view when he wrote: "There is a small minority of musicians, whose nature inclines them to consider carefully whatever may broaden the scope of art...and they assert that this work is the most magnificent expression of Beethoven's genius...That is the view I share."
