CAL PERFORMANCES PRESENTS Friday, October 28, 2011, 8pm Zellerbach Hall San Francisco Opera Orchestra Nicola Luisotti, Music Director PROGRAM Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1817) Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 (1804–1808) Allegro con brio Andante con moto Allegro — Allegro INTERMISSION Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92 (1811–1812) Poco sostenuto — Vivace Allegretto Presto Allegro con brio San Francisco Opera David Gockley, General Director Nicola Luisotti, Music Director This concert is made possible, in part, by San Francisco Opera’s Amici di Nicola of the Camerata group. Cal Performances’ 2011–2012 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo. CAL PERFORMANCES 5 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) whole extent, as if in a single grasp.” By “picture” path-breaking achievement. Its popularity has in the headlong rush that hurtles through the Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 Beethoven meant not a visible painting, but never waned. movement. It provides the necessary contrast rather an overview of the total structure of the Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, more than any while doing nothing to impede the music’s flow. Composed between 1804 and 1808. Premiered Symphony, from its tiniest fragmentary compo- work in the musical repertory, is the archetypal The development section is a paragon of cohe- on December 22, 1808, in Vienna, conducted by nent to the grand sweep of its total structure. example of the technique and content of the sion, logic and concision. The recapitulation the composer. So completely did composition occupy form. Its overall structure is not one of four in- roars forth after a series of breathless chords that Beethoven’s thoughts that he sometimes ignored dependent essays linked simply by tonality and pass from woodwinds to strings and back. The Surprisingly, for this Symphony that serves as the necessities of daily life. Concern with his style, as in the typical 18th-century example, but stark hammer-blows of the closing chords bring the locus classicus of orchestral music, little is appearance, eating habits, cleanliness, even his is rather a carefully devised whole in which each the movement to its powerful end. known about its creation. There are vague hints conversation, all gave way before his compos- of the movements serves to carry the work inexo- The form of the second movement is a set of that it may have been occasioned by an aborted ing. There are many reports of his trooping the rably toward its end. The progression from mi- variations on two contrasting themes. The first love affair with either Therese von Brunswick streets and woods of Vienna humming, singing, nor to major, from dark to light, from conflict to theme, presented by violas and cellos, is sweet or Giulietta Guicciardi. The theory has been bellowing, penning a scrap of melody, and be- resolution is at the very heart of the “meaning” and lyrical in nature; the second, heard in horns advanced that it was influenced by a surge of ing, in general, oblivious to the people or places of this Symphony. The triumphant, victorious and trumpets, is heroic. The ensuing variations patriotism fueled by an Austrian loss to the around him. (One suspects that his professed nature of the final movement as the logical out- on the themes alternate to produce a movement Napoleonic juggernaut. Even the famous re- love of Nature grew in part from his need to find come of all that preceded it established a model by turns gentle and majestic. mark attributed to Beethoven about the opening a solitary workplace free from distractions and for the symphonies of the Romantic era. The The following Scherzo returns the tempes- motive representing “Fate knocking at the door” the prying interest of his fellow Viennese.) This psychological progression toward the finale— tuous character of the opening movement, as is probably apocryphal, an invention of either titanic struggle with musical tones produced the relentless movement toward a life-affirming the four-note motto from the first movement is Anton Schindler or Ferdinand Ries, two young such mighty monuments as the Fifth Symphony. close—is one of the most important technical heard again in a brazen setting led by the horns. men, close to the composer in his last years, who With it, and with the Third Symphony complet- and emotional legacies Beethoven left to his Thefughetta , the “little fugue,” of the central trio later published their often-untrustworthy remi- ed only four years earlier, Beethoven launched successors. Schumann, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, is initiated by the cellos and basses. The Scherzo niscences of him. music and art into the world of Romanticism. Mahler—their symphonies are indebted to this returns with the mysterious tread of the plucked It is known that the time of the creation of In the history of music, Beethoven stands, one (and to the Ninth Symphony, as well) for the strings, after which the music wanes until little the Fifth Symphony was one of intense activity Janus-faced, as the great colossus between two concept of how such a creation could be struc- more than a heartbeat from the timpani re- for Beethoven. The four years during which the ages and two philosophies. The formal perfec- tured, and in what manner it should engage mains. Then begins another accumulation of work was composed also saw the completion tion of the preceding Classical period finds its the listener. intensity, first gradually, then more quickly, as of a rich variety of other works: Piano Sonatas, greatest fulfillment in his works, which at the The opening gesture is the most famous be- a link to the finale, which arrives with a glori- Opp. 53, 54 and 57; Fourth Piano Concerto; same time contain the taproot of the cathartic ginning in all of classical music. It establishes ous proclamation, like brilliant sun bursting Fourth and Sixth Symphonies; Violin Concerto; emotional experience from which grew the art the stormy temper of the Allegro by presenting through ominous clouds. the first two versions of Fidelio; Razumovsky of the 19th century. Beethoven himself evalu- the germinal cell from which the entire move- The finale, set in the triumphant key of Quartets, Op. 59; Coriolan Overture; Mass in C ated his position as a creator in the following ment grows. Though it is possible to trace this C major, is jubilant and martial. (Robert major, Op. 86; and Cello Sonata No. 3, Op. 69. way: “Music is the mediator between intel- memorable four-note motive through most of Schumann saw here the influence of Étienne- As was his practice with many of his important lectual and sensuous life…the one incorporeal the measures of the movement, the esteemed Nicolas Méhul, one of the prominent compos- works, Beethoven revised and rewrote the Fifth entrance into the higher world of knowledge English musicologist Sir Donald Tovey pointed ers of the French Revolution.) The sonata form Symphony for years. which comprehends mankind but which man- out that the power of the music is not contained proceeds apace. At the apex of the development, Beethoven’s remarks about this Symphony kind cannot comprehend.” The Fifth Symphony in this fragment, but rather in the “long sen- however, the mysterious end of the Scherzo is in- are vague and elusive rather than concrete. The is indeed such a “mediator.” Its message of vic- tences” built from it. The key to appreciating voked to serve as the link to the return of the compositional problems he set for himself were tory through struggle, which so deeply touches Beethoven’s formal structures lies in being aware main theme in the recapitulation. It also re- abstract, musico-emotional ones that were little both the heart and the mind, is achieved by a of the way in which the music moves constantly calls and compresses the emotional journey of affected by external experiences, and not acces- near-perfect balance of musical technique and from one point of arrival to the next, from one the entire Symphony. The closing pages repeat sible to translation into mere words. In one of passionate sentiment unsurpassed in the history sentence to the next. It is in the careful weight- the cadence chords extensively to discharge the his few comments about the Symphony, he not- of music. This Symphony was the work that won ing of successive climaxes through harmonic, enormous accumulated energy of the work. ed that, after the creation of the theme, “begins for Beethoven an international renown. Despite rhythmic and instrumental resources that Concerning the effect of the “struggle to in my head the working-out in breadth, height a few early misunderstandings due undoubtedly Beethoven created the enormous energy and victory” that is symbolized by the structure of and depth. Since I am aware of what I want, the to its unprecedented concentration of energy, seeming inevitability of this monumental move- the Fifth Symphony, a quote that Beethoven fundamental idea never leaves me. It mounts, it it caught on very quickly, and was soon rec- ment. The gentler second theme derives from the scribbled in a notebook of the Archduke Rudolf, grows. I see before my mind the picture in its ognized in Europe, England and America as a opening motive, and gives only a brief respite one of his aristocratic piano and composition 6 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 7 PROGRAM NOTES PROGRAM NOTES students, is pertinent. The composer wrote, sudden, strong attack] occurred, he thrust apart not only connects the introduction with the ex- “Many assert that every minor [tonality] piece his arms, which he had previously crossed upon position but also establishes the dactylic rhythm must end in the minor.