Triple Bill BEETHOVEN-BALLETS Hans van Manen / Mauro Bigonzetti 3 Aufbruch! Triple Bill BEETHOVEN- BALLETS Hans van Manen / Mauro Bigonzetti Presented by Adagio Hammerklavier Einssein Große Fuge 3 Aufbruch! Triple Bill BEETHOVEN- BALLETS Hans van Manen / Mauro Bigonzetti Presented by Adagio Hammerklavier Einssein Große Fuge 4 5 Ta Ta Taaaa – Dance! Ta Ta Taaaa – Dance! TA TA TAAAA – DANCE! Beethoven and ballet, it was said for a long time, are a bad fit. The choreographers Mauro Bigonzetti and Hans van Manen prove the opposite with their highly individual works set to the music of this acclaimed genius. There are statements which develop a life Olympus of Viennese classical music, Haydn of their own. Such is the case with this sen- and Mozart – rejected appointments at prin- tence by the great choreographer George cely courts in order to be free and subjective Balanchine: “Dance should leave Beethoven in his art. The consummate, ultimate artist well alone – there’s no choreographing to to whom nothing need be added – not even his music.” It would seem that these words the dance. The Ta ta taaaa of his Fifth Sym- have been echoing between stages and phony or the beginning of his piano piece studios for decades, for indeed: there are Für Elise have become acoustic knowledge far fewer pieces to Beethoven than to the world-wide. Which is exactly what George music of other composers. John Cranko, for Balanchine was referring to: “While listening example, did not choreograph a single ballet to composers like Beethoven and Brahms, to Beethoven, John Neumeier did not stage every listener has his own ideas, paints his his first full-length Beethoven ballet until own picture of what the music represents … fifty years after his debut. Uwe Scholz’s stel- How can I, a choreographer, try to squeeze lar choreography to the Seventh Symphony a dancing body into a picture that already remains an exception. Now, BEETHOVEN- exists in someone’s mind? It simply won’t BALLETS refutes this verdict. For this triple work.” bill three artists come together: Beethoven himself, grand seigneur Hans van Manen, Beethoven is regarded as unwieldy and the who choreographed his Große Fuge to the details of his life fit this image: a lifelong string quartet movement op. 133 in 1971 and bachelor and man about town, childless, his Adagio Hammerklavier to a movement a visionary who penetrated into hither- of the Sonata op. 106 in 1973, and Mauro to unknown worlds of sound, isolated in Bigonzetti, the master of sensuality, who deafness, difficult to deal with. According contributes a world premiere set to three of to tradition, he was a very bad dancer. All Beethoven’s piano sonatas to this evening. this is the opposite of grace. Perhaps that is why Beethoven wrote only one ballet, The Celebrating extremes Creatures of Prometheus? But there are also purely musical reasons that could have led So apparently one can choreograph to Beet- Balanchine to his judgement. Beethoven hoven very well after all. But what if we take worked like no other on the condensation Balanchine’s verdict, which has become an of music, exploring it to its extremes. The “urban legend”, seriously for a moment? fortepiano, the original form of today’s pia- What are the arguments against dancing no, only became established around 1800. to Beethoven’s work? If you stick to clichés Beethoven, born in 1770, was enthusiastic Friedemann Vogel, Elisa Badenes in Einssein (and after all, there is always something to about the new musical technology. For them), it does make sense: In music histo- the first time, it was possible to play very ry, Beethoven is the ungovernable one, the dynamically – powerfully loud, but also lyri- one who – unlike his predecessors on the cally and gently. Beethoven’s music snubs 4 5 Ta Ta Taaaa – Dance! Ta Ta Taaaa – Dance! TA TA TAAAA – DANCE! Beethoven and ballet, it was said for a long time, are a bad fit. The choreographers Mauro Bigonzetti and Hans van Manen prove the opposite with their highly individual works set to the music of this acclaimed genius. There are statements which develop a life Olympus of Viennese classical music, Haydn of their own. Such is the case with this sen- and Mozart – rejected appointments at prin- tence by the great choreographer George cely courts in order to be free and subjective Balanchine: “Dance should leave Beethoven in his art. The consummate, ultimate artist well alone – there’s no choreographing to to whom nothing need be added – not even his music.” It would seem that these words the dance. The Ta ta taaaa of his Fifth Sym- have been echoing between stages and phony or the beginning of his piano piece studios for decades, for indeed: there are Für Elise have become acoustic knowledge far fewer pieces to Beethoven than to the world-wide. Which is exactly what George music of other composers. John Cranko, for Balanchine was referring to: “While listening example, did not choreograph a single ballet to composers like Beethoven and Brahms, to Beethoven, John Neumeier did not stage every listener has his own ideas, paints his his first full-length Beethoven ballet until own picture of what the music represents … fifty years after his debut. Uwe Scholz’s stel- How can I, a choreographer, try to squeeze lar choreography to the Seventh Symphony a dancing body into a picture that already remains an exception. Now, BEETHOVEN- exists in someone’s mind? It simply won’t BALLETS refutes this verdict. For this triple work.” bill three artists come together: Beethoven himself, grand seigneur Hans van Manen, Beethoven is regarded as unwieldy and the who choreographed his Große Fuge to the details of his life fit this image: a lifelong string quartet movement op. 133 in 1971 and bachelor and man about town, childless, his Adagio Hammerklavier to a movement a visionary who penetrated into hither- of the Sonata op. 106 in 1973, and Mauro to unknown worlds of sound, isolated in Bigonzetti, the master of sensuality, who deafness, difficult to deal with. According contributes a world premiere set to three of to tradition, he was a very bad dancer. All Beethoven’s piano sonatas to this evening. this is the opposite of grace. Perhaps that is why Beethoven wrote only one ballet, The Celebrating extremes Creatures of Prometheus? But there are also purely musical reasons that could have led So apparently one can choreograph to Beet- Balanchine to his judgement. Beethoven hoven very well after all. But what if we take worked like no other on the condensation Balanchine’s verdict, which has become an of music, exploring it to its extremes. The “urban legend”, seriously for a moment? fortepiano, the original form of today’s pia- What are the arguments against dancing no, only became established around 1800. to Beethoven’s work? If you stick to clichés Beethoven, born in 1770, was enthusiastic Friedemann Vogel, Elisa Badenes in Einssein (and after all, there is always something to about the new musical technology. For them), it does make sense: In music histo- the first time, it was possible to play very ry, Beethoven is the ungovernable one, the dynamically – powerfully loud, but also lyri- one who – unlike his predecessors on the cally and gently. Beethoven’s music snubs 6 7 Ta Ta Taaaa – Dance! Ta Ta Taaaa – Dance! expectations, it celebrates extremes, from Große Fuge and Adagio Hammerklavier. dynamic changes and abrupt eruptions, to Van Manen only heard of Balanchine’s state- playful, quiet passages. ment about Beethoven when these pieces were finished: “If I had known beforehand, I Rediscovering intimacy might have hesitated for a moment – and then done it anyway,” he says. When he Choreographer Mauro Bigonzetti delights in heard the Große Fuge for the first time at these extremes and the irrepressible power a friend’s house in Cologne in 1968, he was that lie in Beethoven’s music. “I know many immediately fascinated – and not at all inti- people say you can’t dance to Beethoven midated by the greatness and significance well,” he explains. “But that’s not true for of this music: “I thought what I heard was me. Beethoven’s music is so strong, deep so fantastic. So abstract! I listened to it four and expressive. It really speaks to us. It’s times that day and took the record straight wonderful for dance!” In one of his very first back to Amsterdam.” He knew: this music works, Bigonzetti choreographed Beet- needs to become dance. Already in the very hoven’s last string quartet. For his world first steps of his choreography, van Manen premiere Einssein (“to be one with”) he is refutes Balanchine: the rich, aggressive taking on movements from three different strings and the dancers’ determined steps sonata: “This music fits to loneliness,” seem to merge; it is as if Beethoven had says Bigonzetti, “especially in this global composed especially for van Manen’s move- situation. We will all need to rediscover our ments. Chance also came to van Manen’s intimacy – and this music makes that pal- aid for his Adagio Hammerklavier: he heard pable. For Beethoven, you should learn to the piece performed by pianist Christoph listen anew, then you hear something very Eschenbach at a friend’s house. He liked special, something primordially human.” the unusually slow interpretation; to this The movements Bigonzetti has chosen for day, every performance of his ballet must Einssein are virtually exemplary of Beetho- adhere to Eschenbach’s tempo, which takes ven’s character – as if the choreographer a full 24 minutes for this movement while wanted to embrace precisely what others other pianists play it in a quarter of an hour.