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Oak Bay United Church
February 21, 2016
"[It is] one of the incomprehensible deeds in arts and letters, the greatest single step made by an individual composer in the history of the symphony and the history of music in general".
Paul Henry Lang, in his Music in Western Civilization, is describing the work announced in 1805 as "A grand Sinfonie in D sharp minor by Herr Ludwig von Beethoven and dedicated to His Highness Prince von Lobkowitz".
Despite the errors (the symphony, by Ludwig van Beethoven, is in E flat major) the notice is of one of the most significant events in Western Musical history, the first (public) performance of the "Eroica" symphony, after which nothing would ever be the same again.
Beethoven's Third Symphony is, unlike its predecessors, music which is clearly about something, but not in any programmatic sense (even the storm in the "Pastoral" is a far cry from the tempesta di mare beloved by baroque composers). Indeed, whether it is about the French Revolution, Prometheus, Napoleon or even Beethoven himself, hardly matters; it is impossible to hear a first-class performance of the "Eroica" and come away without the feeling that one has just witnessed an enterprise of great pith and moment.
On Sunday Yariv Aloni and the Victoria Chamber Orchestra gave not just a first-class, but a truly magisterial performance of the symphony; in a sense this was a performance they have been working towards for over two decades, and it is still ringing in my head as I write these words several days later.
The abrupt opening chords (the severe truncation of the traditional slow introduction is the first sign, of many, that "something is happening here") immediately signalled the fact that Aloni was not about to shade his tempos out of any misguided consideration for his players, who, are, in any case, by now admirably capable of playing at the brisk tempo he clearly felt appropriate. This was indeed playing of a high calibre, with marvellously forceful accents and a tremendously exciting development section. What was in its day longest opening movement in symphonic history passed in the blink of an eye.
The funeral march was taken at a flowing, but never hurried, pace with the orchestra providing a full, rich sound. The fugue was gloriously trenchant and the climaxes almost overwhelming.
Rhythmic vitality was the key feature of the scherzo and the horns in the trio were outstanding.
Casting the finale in variation form was unprecedented (Brahms cited Beethoven's example in defence of the finale of his own fourth symphony) but, Beethoven being Beethoven, matters are far less simple than that.
The variations are based on the theme of the seventh of his set of twelve contredanses, WoO14, which Beethoven had also used in his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus and his Op.35 variations for piano, retrospectively dubbed the "Eroica" variations.
In the symphony, as in the piano variations, Beethoven begins with several variations on the bass line of the theme before unveiling the theme itself; in this case by inserting the contredanse exactly as originally written. Even for those familiar with the original, in this context, coming as the culmination of the opening variations, the simple little dance acquires a whole new resonance.
Once again, Aloni shaped the movement superbly and his players rose to the challenge, the music's momentum seeming all but unstoppable. Concentration never flagged for an instant even in the lengthy poco andante section, in which careful attention to the hairpin dynamics paid dividends.
Beethoven would surely have approved.
Whenever a concert closes with a "big" work, it is all too often clear that the accompanying "smaller" works have been accorded less rehearsal time and less importance in general.
This was most emphatically not the case with Sunday's account of Beethoven's First Symphony, which combined excellent playing with a real sense of the freshness and excitement the first audiences must have experienced; for all its debt to Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven was never a merely slavish imitator and began his symphonies as he intended to continue.
The opening offered a resonant pizzicato and nicely-tuned wind chords; the flowing introduction led, via a smoothly-handled accelerando into the main Allegro con brio. Here, as in the "Eroica", I am happy to say that the exposition repeat was taken. There was a wonderful feline tread to the development and the closing chords were commendably precise.
The slow movement possessed a marvellous inner momentum, the minuet (a scherzo in all but name) was propulsive and bouncy, with first-rate winds in the trio.
The finale features one of the great orchestral pitfalls in the shape of the gradually-unfolding accelerating upward scale in the first violins; maintaining ensemble at this point has notoriously proved the downfall of a number of "name" conductors.
But not here. The finale itself was tremendously exciting and closed one of the finest performances of the symphony I have ever heard.
A remarkable concert which is already one of my highlights of the year. Kudos to all concerned.
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