The enthusiasm aroused by this symphony over more than two centuries and countless thousands of performances have generated reams of eloquent praise.
Adding further zest was the presence of Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, inventor of both the metronome and of the mechanical instrument for which Wellington’s Victory had originally been written, the Panharmonicon (Beethoven subsequently rewrote it for orchestra). Many of Europe’s musical luminaries, including Salieri, Spohr, Moscheles, Hummel, Meyerbeer, Romberg and Dragonetti played in the orchestra, lending an extra air of celebration to the concert. This was also the event at which the noisy spectacle Wellington’s Victory, or The Battle of Vitoria, was first performed, a huge success at the time but now regarded as something of an embarrassment. The occasion of that world premiere was a gala benefit concert for Austrian and Bavarian soldiers wounded in the Battle of Hanau, which had occurred a few weeks earlier. “All persons, however they had previously dissented from his music, now agreed to award him his laurels,” wrote Anton Schindler, Beethoven’s first biographer. When Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony was first performed in the large hall of the University of Vienna on December 8, 1813, it was immediately hailed as a sensational achievement, a judgment maintained continuously down to the present day. “The sound itself creates the actual and personal physical contact: in sports language, it ‘tackles’ you, so that you will not quickly return to normal,” writes Klaus G. Roy, former program annotator for the Cleveland Orchestra. The Seventh requires only a modest-sized orchestra (pairs of woodwinds, horns, trumpets and timpani in addition to strings), but the sheer visceral impact it makes virtually guarantees a successful performance by even the least accomplished of ensembles. The Ninth may be the most beloved today (it was not always so), but it requires vastly larger forces than the Seventh, well beyond the means of many amateur and semi-professional orchestras. The Seventh may well be the most frequently played of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, the Fifth notwithstanding. Here’s to the new season, to the new hall and to a bright future for this wonderful, wonderful orchestra!īeethoven Symphony No. For 50 years, you have been instrumental in thousands of performances in this space. For 50 years, you have listened and responded. And it is our great pleasure to share this musical Everest, this cornerstone of artistic output, with you, our dear audience. It is my great privilege to share this new stage with the incomparable musicians of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, who will interpret and form every note of this cycle with passion, detail, verve and love. I can conceive of no better way to explore every inch of this new space than with a fresh take on this most complete and all-encompassing of symphonic cycles. I cannot think of a state of mind that is not in one way or another expressed through this music.Īs we begin our 50th anniversary season, we also begin our next artistic chapter in a reinvigorated Southam Hall with its glorious new shell and acoustic. Joy, passion, warmth, mourning, hope, loss, melancholy, peace, victory, struggle, solidarity, desperation, reverence, simplicity. And why? In order to express, through the abstract language of music, the most fundamental and tangible shared emotions of humankind. He demands rigour and attention of performers and listeners alike. He challenges the orchestra to be its best. From the classical strains of his first to the universal themes of his last, there is not a single note out of place, not a single bar wasted, not a single idea unexplored. Over the course of these nine masterpieces, Beethoven evolved not just his own music, but revolutionized all of music in a way and at a pace hitherto unprecedented. The Beethoven symphonies are central to the life of musicians and audiences.
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