BEETHOVEN - SYMPHONY #9
LUDWIG VON BEETHOVEN began his studies in his native Bonn, under Christian Gottlob Neefe, who used the works of Johann Sebastian Bach as composition manuals for his uniquely gifted student. He recommended that Beethoven study in Vienna with Mozart, whom Beethoven met during a 1787 visit to the city. However, when Beethoven moved to Vienna in 1792, Mozart was dead, and he studied, instead, with Franz Josef Haydn. In a composing career encompassing a great variety of works, Beethoven used the complexities he had learned from Bach and the musical forms perfected in the late 18th century by Mozart and Haydn to move into a new 19th-century realm – one which insures his place in the world’s pantheon of great composers.
His symphonic works reshape, in startlingly original ways, the traditional techniques he inherited from the 18th century, pushing compositional and performance boundaries further, and giving the orchestra, chorus and new and increasingly dramatic roles. There is nothing abstract about Beethoven’s music: it reflects a complex, contradictory universe and a very beautiful and personal one, and nowhere is this more evident than in his Symphony No. 9.
In 1815 Beethoven began sketches for the work, but its final shape and content took nearly 10 years to mature. In 1823 he contacted the London Philharmonic Society to see if it would commission a new symphony: the Society offered him L50 for an “unpublished” work, allowing him to premiere it in Vienna. By early 1824 it was complete, and the Viennese premiere took place on May 7, 1824.
By 1824 the composer was profoundly deaf and unable to hear the premiere or the thunderous ovation it received. It seems to have been a scratchy performance: the orchestra, a combination of theatre orchestra professionals and amateurs, had difficulty learning the music, and, during the performance, some actually stopped playing when the parts became too hard. Vocal soloists complained of the tessitura and difficulty of the new work, and, during the premiere, apparently transposed high entrances down or did not sing them at all. The composer, immersed in his score, was unaware of this: hearing, in his own way the extraordinary contribution he had made to the choral-orchestral repertoire.
The Symphony No. 9 is in the traditional 4-movement classical period form, but there is nothing traditional about the work’s size and complexity, or the unexpected addition of a chorus to the final movement. In four movements, Allegro, Molto Vivace, Adagio molto e cantabile, and a Finale: Presto – Allegro Assai, the symphony is scored for strings, flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, timpani and percussion. The last movement recapitulates themes from the first three, making it almost a small symphony in itself, and the inspired setting of parts of Friedrich Schiller’s Ode to Joy for vocal soloists and chorus make the work unique in the symphonic literature.
MEET THE SOLOISTS
REBECCA COPLEY, soprano, a favorite in the Chorale’s Fisher Hall seasons, has sung many roles with the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera, and with companies across the United States. • She has sung in concert with many orchestras, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Dallas Symphony, New Jersey Symphony and St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and in New York with the Little Orchestral Society. • She has appeared in South America with the Bilbao Symphony and Symphony of Rio de Janeiro, with the Paris Opera, and toured Europe, Africa and Japan in both opera and concert.
JANARA KELLERMAN, alto, new to the National Chorale series, has appeared with New York City Opera and was featured in last season’s fall gala concert. • She has sung with companies throughout the United States: Opera Illinois, Opera Southwest, Augusta Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Cedar Rapids Opera, and San Antonio Opera. • In 2008 she returns to Augusta Opera to sing Carmen, and travels to Hungaryto sing the role of Elizabeth Procter in The Crucible. A Liederkranz Competition winner with a repertoire ranging from Bach to Honegger, she has appeared with orchestras across the country.
DANIEL WEEKS, tenor, returning to the Chorale’s series, has appeared with the Pittsburgh Symphony, Houston and Dallas Symphonies, the Louisville Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, and Venezuela’s Xalapa Symphony, among others. • He has also sung a wide variety of roles with the Austin Lyric Opera, Nevada Opera, Cincinnati Opera and Kentucky Opera and toured nationally with San Francisco Opera’s Western Opera Theatre. • New York audiences have heard him at Carnegie Hall with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and the Oratorio Society of New York, and in recital for the Marilyn Horne Foundation.
GRANT YOUNGBLOOD, bass, who made a memorable debut with the Chorale in Carmina Burana, returns to sing Beethoven’s great Symphony No. 9. • He has appeared in concert with major orchestras throughout the United States, Canada and Europe, including the San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony and Bucharest Philharmonic. • On New York City Opera’s roster since 1995, he has also sung a wide variety of roles with San Francisco Opera, Washington Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Florida Grand Opera and L’Opéra de Montréal.
MEET THE CONDUCTOR
MARTIN JOSMAN, music director of the National Chorale, is one of the nation’s leading vocal conductors. • He has conducted more than 1,500 concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, throughout the New York area, and across the United States: at Boston’s Symphony Hall, the Philadelphia Academy of Music, the Seattle Opera House, Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis, the Saratoga Festival Amphitheatre, Powell Hall in St. Louis, Symphony Halls in Tulsa and Phoenix, the Eastman Theatre in Rochester, and the Chautauqua Amphitheatre. • Mr. Josman has conducted concerts and Messiah Sing-Ins at Avery Fisher Hall each season since 1965. • ABC Television chose him as music director for the network’s 90-minute musical tribute to President John F. Kennedy, and he also served as music director and conductor for the 90-minute PBS-Channel 13 special, Bach and His Sons: The Overwhelming Legacy, shown more than 350 times by 125 public television stations across the country. • A native New Yorker, Mr. Josman regularly conducts an extensive repertory of choral/orchestral masterworks, as well as opera, operetta, and the Chorale’s New York Festival of American Music Theatre concerts at Avery Fisher Hall and Carnegie Hall. • He has presented numerous contemporary works and music commissioned by the Chorale, as well as the United States premieres of many newly-rediscovered Baroque, Classical, and Romantic-era masterpieces.