RSNO Friday Night Club: Beethoven Symphony No5

Friday Night Club Fri 29 May 2020: 7.30pm BEETHOVEN Symphony No5 Sharon Roffman Leader/Director Royal Scottish National Orchestra Recorded on Sat 4 May 2019, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Dedicated to The Lillie Bequest Fund in recognition of the RSNO Foundation’s generous support

This performance was recorded for the RSNO Archive. Supported by the Iain and Pamela Sinclair Legacy.

RSNO Friday Night Club: Beethoven Symphony No5

Coriolan Overture Op62 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

(1770-1827)

FIRST PERFORMED in March 1807 at the home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz DURATION 8 minutes Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture was composed for a production of a play by Heinrich van Collin, a re-working of Shakespeare’s notoriously bloody tragedy, Coriolanus. Set in the 5th century BC, the play tells of Coriolanus, a Roman general who denies the plebeian masses grain unless they dissolve their newly formed Tribune. Banished from the city, he encourages the Volsci, a rebellious tribe, to wage war on Rome. His mother Volumnia pleads with him to spare his native city. He does, only to be killed by the Volsci for his treachery.

The loud chords that open the Overture represent Coriolanus’ rage and unbending defiance, while the rising theme that follows (written in the traditionally tragic key of C Minor, the key also of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony) suggests his tragic struggle with fate. In contrast, the plaintive second theme signifies the feminine presence of Volumnia as she begs her son to spare Rome. The interaction of these two highly contrasted musical ideas creates a tension that can only be resolved by Coriolanus’ demise, his fate represented at the end by three fading pizzicato (plucked) notes. © Anthony Bateman

Scotland’s National Orchestra

Symphony No5 in C Minor Op67 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

too much of a good thing – and still more of a loud one’.

FIRST PERFORMED on 22 December 1808 at the Theater an der Wien, Vienna, with the composer conducting DURATION 34 minutes

Music critics had little to say about the Fifth at its premiere. However, a year and a half later, the Allgemeine musicalische Zeitung gave a highly favourable review of a later performance.

‘Radiant beams shoot through the deep night of this region, and we become aware of gigantic shadows which, rocking back and forth, close in on us and destroy all within us except the pain of endless longing – a longing in which every pleasure that rose up amid jubilant tones sinks and succumbs. Only through this pain, which, while consuming but not destroying love, hope, and joy, tries to burst our breasts with a full-voiced general cry from all the passions, do we live on and are captivated beholders of the spirits.’

(1770-1827)

Allegro con brio Andante con moto Scherzo: Allegro Allegro On 22 December 1808, Viennese devotees of new music made their way to the Theater an der Wien for the most significant concert of the year, indeed one of the most significant concerts in all of music history. It was an allBeethoven programme consisting mainly of newly composed works: the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies; the Fourth Piano Concerto; the concert aria ‘Ah! Perfido’; three movements from the Mass in C and a lengthy piano improvisation. Extraordinarily, Beethoven felt that he still needed a ‘brilliant closing piece’ (in the words of his student Carl Czerny) and so, in great haste, wrote the Choral Fantasy.

As was the custom of the time, Beethoven not only played the solo part in the concerto, but also conducted it from the keyboard.

Increasingly suffering from the deafness which was eventually to overcome him, it was the last occasion on which the composer appeared as a concerto soloist, and he played according to one observer ‘impulsively and at breakneck speed’.

It was four hours of new music, the theatre was unheated, the orchestra was under-rehearsed, and the soprano soloist had a bad case of stage-fright. The whole experience led one listener to comment later that ‘one can have

Few reviewers today write with such descriptive energy, perhaps because few reviewers are novelists and fewer still are composers. E T A Hoffmann, author of this particular review, was both.

The Fifth Symphony has undergone much analysis since Hoffmann’s attempt, and the very first four notes have drawn much of the attention. Beethoven himself allegedly described them as ‘Fate knocking at the door’.

It’s an evocative image, and certainly this, the most famous four-note pattern in all of music, remains the recurring element that unites the symphony’s four movements. This so-called ‘fate’ motive dominates the first movement. It provides the basic building block from which the entire movement grows, and the constant repetition of its distinctive rhythm engenders a growing sense of agitation and momentum.

And yet, as the eminent musicologist Sir Donald Tovey observed, the power of this movement comes as much from the ‘long

RSNO Friday Night Club: Beethoven Symphony No5

sentences’ that Beethoven ingeniously wrought from this four-note fragment, as from the theme itself.

THE FIFTH IN LITERATURE

In contrast to the turbulence of the opening Allegro, the restrained second movement is an unusual set of variations in which two themes alternate. The first, sweet and lyrical, is introduced by the violas and cellos; the second, more bombastic and martial, is given to the horns and trumpets.

The third movement, a Scherzo, begins with a quiet, ominous tune for cellos and basses, and though the horns interject with echoes of the ‘fate’ motive, it is the lower strings that carry the musical argument forward and create the atmosphere of mystery and suspense out of which grows the glorious blaze of light that is the Finale. This last movement, in which the ‘fate’ motive reasserts itself in a new heroic guise, is unabashedly triumphant. It is, above all, a life-affirming conclusion to this most heroic of symphonies, and the culmination of a journey that has taken us from minor to major, from despair to joy, from adversity to victory. © Mark Fielding

E M FORSTER

In his novel Howards End (1910), E M Forster shows us how, irrespective of individual attitudes, Beethoven’s music brings people together, breaking down the barriers between them: It will generally be admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come – of course, not so as to disturb the others; or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music’s flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee; or like Fräulein Mosebach, who remembers all the time that Beethoven is “echt Deutsch”; or like Fräulein Mosebach’s young man, who can remember nothing but Fräulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings.

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RSNO Friday Night Club: Beethoven Symphony No5

© Sally Jubb

Sharon Roffman LEADER/DIRECTOR

Scotland’s National Orchestra

Sharon Roffman was appointed Leader of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in 2018.

She was a prizewinner in the 2003 Naumburg Foundation International Competition and made her solo debut with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in 1996. Today she is equally sought after as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral leader and music educator.

Sharon made her Carnegie Hall debut as a soloist in Vivaldi’s Concerto for Four Violins, with Itzhak Perlman playing and conducting, in 2004. She has appeared as a guest leader of the London Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre d’Auvergne, Orchestre Symphonique de Bretagne and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

As a chamber musician, Sharon has collaborated with members of the Guarneri, Juilliard, Brentano, Shanghai, Avalon and Miami quartets, was a member of the critically acclaimed contemporary music ensemble counter)induction, and spent several summers performing at the Marlboro Music Festival.

Passionate about combining performance and education, Sharon is the founder and artistic director of ClassNotes, a chamber

music ensemble and non-profit organisation dedicated to introducing students to classical music through interdisciplinary school residencies and performances.

In 2015 she premiered a new concerto by Bruce Adolphe (I Will Not Remain Silent) with the IRIS Orchestra conducted by Michael Stern, and created The Prinz Project, an online interdisciplinary curriculum and outreach initiative to accompany the concerto.

In 2018 she performed Bernstein’s Serenade with the Kansas City Symphony and created an accompanying website for audiences to explore the work in more detail. She has also created an online elementary school curriculum about the relationship between music and art for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and regularly teaches in elementary schools across Australia both live and via video conferencing.

Sharon is a graduate of the Juilliard School and the Cleveland Institute of Music; her former teachers include Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein, Peter Winograd, Robert Lipsett, Patinka Kopec and Nicole DiCecco.

RSNO Friday Night Club: Beethoven Symphony No5

Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Formed in 1891 as the Scottish Orchestra, the company became the Scottish National Orchestra in 1950, and was awarded Royal Patronage in 1977. The Orchestra’s artistic team is led by Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård, who was appointed RSNO Music Director in October 2018, having previously held the position of Principal Guest Conductor. Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan succeeds Søndergård as Principal Guest Conductor. They are joined by Assistant Conductor Junping Qian.

The RSNO performs across Scotland, including concerts in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Perth and Inverness. The Orchestra appears regularly at the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms, and has made recent tours to the USA, China and throughout Europe.

The Orchestra is joined for choral performances by the RSNO Chorus, directed by Gregory Batsleer. The RSNO Chorus evolved from a choir formed in 1843 to sing the first full performance of Handel’s Messiah in Scotland. Today, the RSNO Chorus is one of the most distinguished large symphonic choruses in Britain, with a membership of around 160. The Chorus has performed nearly every work in the standard choral repertoire, along with contemporary works by composers including John Adams, Howard Shore and James MacMillan.

Formed in 1978 by Jean Kidd, the acclaimed RSNO Junior Chorus, under its new director Patrick Barrett, also performs regularly alongside the Orchestra. Boasting a membership of over 400 members aged from 7 to 18, it has built up a considerable reputation singing under some of the world’s most distinguished conductors and appearing on radio and television.

The RSNO has a worldwide reputation for the quality of its recordings, receiving two Diapason d’Or awards for Symphonic Music (Denève/ Roussel 2007; Denève/Debussy 2012) and eight GRAMMY Awards nominations. Over 200 releases are available, including the complete symphonies of Sibelius (Gibson), Prokofiev (Järvi), Glazunov (Serebrier), Nielsen and Martinů (Thomson) and Roussel (Denève) and the major orchestral works of Debussy (Denève). Thomas Søndergård’s debut recording with the RSNO, of Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, was released on Linn Records in 2019.

The RSNO’s pioneering learning and engagement programme, Music for Life, aims to engage the people of Scotland with music across key stages of life: Early Years, Nurseries and Schools, Teenagers and Students, Families, Accessing Lives, Working Lives and Retired and Later Life.

The team is committed to placing the Orchestra at the centre of Scottish communities via community workshops and annual residencies across the length and breadth of the country.

Scotland’s National Orchestra

On Stage FIRST VIOLIN Sharon Roffman

FLUTE Helen Brew

Emily Davis Lena Zeliszewska Patrick Curlett Barbara Paterson Judith Choi-Castro Ursula Heidecker Allen Alan Manson

Janet Larsson Janet Richardson

LEADER

SECOND VIOLIN Xander van Vliet PRINCIPAL

Marion Wilson Robin Wilson Michael Rigg Anne Bünemann Sophie Lang Katie Jackson Gongbo Jiang VIOLA Tom Dunn PRINCIPAL

Hannah Shaw Susan Buchan Lisa Rourke Claire Dunn Francesca Hunt CELLO Aleksei Kiseliov PRINCIPAL

Betsy Taylor Kennedy Leitch Arthur Boutillier William Paterson DOUBLE BASS Margarida Castro ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL

Michael Rae Paul Sutherland Sally Davis

ASSOCIATE PRINCIPAL

PRINCIPAL PICCOLO

OBOE Adrian Wilson PRINCIPAL

Peter Dykes CLARINET Jordi Juan-Perez GUEST PRINCIPAL

Duncan Swindells BASSOON David Hubbard PRINCIPAL

Luis Eisen Christopher McShane CONTRABASSOON

HORN Martin Murphy

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL

Alison Murray TRUMPET Christopher Hart PRINCIPAL

Marcus Pope TROMBONE Dávur Juul Magnussen PRINCIPAL

Lance Green Alastair Sinclair

PRINCIPAL BASS TROMBONE

TIMPANI Paul Philbert PRINCIPAL

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