Program
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, Op. 60 (1806)
Adagio – Allegro vivace
Adagio
Allegro vivace
Allegro ma non troppo
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)
Symphony No. 41 in C Major, ‘Jupiter’, KV 551 (1788)
Allegro vivace
Andante cantabile
Menuetto: Allegretto
Molto allegro
Performers:
musicAeterna Orchestra
Conductor Teodor Currentzis
Details
To conclude the season, Teodor Currentzis and the musicAeterna Orchestra will perform symphonies No. 4 by Beethoven and No. 41 ‘Jupiter’ by Mozart. In this programme, classical composers will appear in unusual ‘guises’. The dramatic rebel Beethoven will appear as a gentle lyricist and master of idyllic genre paintings, while the graceful Mozart will reveal himself as a strong-willed monumentalist.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 still remains overshadowed by his ‘Heroic’ Symphony No. 3 and the dramatic No. 5. Robert Schumann deemed it ‘a slender Hellenic maiden between two northern giants,’ Romain Rolland compared it to ‘a pure flower that preserves the fragrance of the clearest days’ in the composer’s life. Romantic composers especially favoured this cycle, perhaps because of the remarkable introduction to the first movement: languid wanderings in the gloomy B-flat minor — the dark key of death — that gradually bring the ‘hero’ into the light: a major sonata allegro. The second melodious Adagio resembles a chamber romantic song. The cheerful Menuetto and impetuous finale seem to bridge the gap from the symphonies of the late Haydn to the fantastic scherzos of Mendelssohn and Berlioz.
Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ symphony, instead of pre–romantic awe — as in the famous Symphony No. 40, which was created simultaneously with the No. 41 — embodies the heroic and epic element in the most Beethovenian sense of the word. The solemn elevatedness of the music, combined with exquisite contrapuntal workmanship and complex compositional techniques, turn this largest of Mozart’s symphonic cycles into a hymn to classicism with its clarity of mind and cheerfulness of spirit.