Although it provided an early boost to his popularity at a time he most needed it, Beethoven grew to resent the success that his Septet generated following its public premiere in Vienna, April 2, 1800. He had worked hard for the concert, his first benefit concert – organizing, promoting, conducting, and playing piano in a typically huge program, with the Septet as its centerpiece. It paid off, and Beethoven is estimated to have been able to live off the proceeds for two years. A piano duo version of the Septet quickly appeared. Then Beethoven encouraged his publisher to issue arrangements for strings alone, for flute quintet, and he even made a transcription himself (his op. 38) for the very marketable, and comfortably domestic, combination of piano trio. The benefit concert at the Burgtheater presented the young Beethoven (Septet, First Symphony, a piano concerto, and piano improvisations) alongside the venerated Mozart (a symphony) and Haydn (excerpts from the newly written oratorio, The Creation). Here was Beethoven standing tall, out of the shadow of his mentors and, by implication, every bit their equal. But the very success of the genial Septet would soon raise expectations that Beethoven was unwilling to meet as his composition evolved. Conservative critics would use it as a barometer against which they would measure the challenges that his more progressive, more demanding later music would pose. Beethoven grew to despise the Septet, whose popularity has never waned. “That damned thing!” the composer told an English visitor a dozen or so years later: “I wish it were burned!”

The Septet is highly original in its one-to-a-part combination of a trio of winds and quartet of strings. Its six movements are rooted in the serenade/divertimento tradition where the winds customarily play in pairs. Here, however, there is just one clarinet, oboe, and bassoon playing individual lines with violin, viola, cello, and bass. Beethoven’s palette is similarly far from traditional, with both bassoon and cello climbing well beyond their habitual bass line support, while the bass itself has more of an orchestral rather than a doubling role. The winds generally either support the strings or work as a group and occasionally as soloists, providing contrast to the sonority of the strings. The stately introduction immediately gives notice of the importance of the violin. Its earliest performer was Ignaz Schuppanzigh, then the foremost violinist in Vienna, chosen to give the premieres of many more of Beethoven’s works in the years to come. Beethoven probably had Schuppanzigh in mind when he turned the second variation (fourth movement) into a miniature concerto, wrote some virtuoso arpeggios in the scherzo movement, and even included a brilliant cadenza for the violin in the finale. The clarinet, too, has time in the limelight, notably in the first two movements. Beethoven draws the theme of the third movement from an earlier G Major Piano Sonata (later published as op. 49, no. 2), crisping up its rhythm and adding flamboyant little displays for horn and clarinet in its central trio section.

To this point, Beethoven follows the pattern of movements of a traditional classical chamber work, and a brisk finale would normally follow. Instead, in the spirit of the serenade, he introduces a fourth movement containing a sequence of five variations on what is believed to be a German folk song, choosing a different texture for each variation. The horn sets the mood of the jaunty Scherzo, which is then introduced to balance the earlier minuet, while the cello commands its lyrical trio section. The finale opens with an imposing, slow march in the minor key. It is a moment of tongue-in-cheek humour and the solemnity is short-lived since the Presto that follows positively exudes joie de vivre. The Septet, where shared enjoyment is a hallmark of the musical language, inspired many 19th century large-scale chamber works by Spohr, Kreutzer, Moscheles, Hummel, Onslow, Berwald, and others – none more celebrated than (with the addition of a second violin) Schubert’s great Octet of 1824.

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Credit – Keith Horner

We tend to think of Beethoven as a very serious, determined, God-like figure: Johann Anton Stieler’s famous portrait of the composer furiously at work on the Missa solemnis; grey mane tousled; a stern, focused expression on his face, encapsulates this widely-held view of the man.

Yet there’s another side to him: one that’s impish, playful, and earthy. You hear this personality in some otherwise long-hair music: the “Alla danza tedesca” movement of the op. 130 string quartet, for instance. And there are whole pieces that revel in this mood, like the early Septet and the later Eighth Symphony.

A lesser-known score in this vein is the Serenade for flute, violin, and viola, written in 1801. It features Beethoven in his most relaxed, charming, and stylistically Classical – a remarkable combination, considering that the piece was composed around the same time the crisis with his hearing reached its climax.

You’d never guess that from this music. The Serenade opens with a lively, tripping “Entrata” that’s filled with fanfare-like figures played by (mainly) the flute and viola. An elegant “Minuet” follows; note the trio, with its florid writing for strings. After this comes a good-natured, scampering “Allegro molto” in D minor and then a broadly lyrical set of variations. A short, driving scherzo movement sets up the big finale, which opens with a stately introduction. But the mood quickly brightens once the “Allegro vivace disinvolto” kicks off with its rustic “Scotch snaps” and buoyant spirits.

 

 

Credit – Jonathan Blumhofer

Even by nineteenth-century standards, the historic concert on December 22, 1808, was something of an endurance test. That night, Beethoven conducted the premieres of both his Fifth and Pastoral symphonies, played his Fourth Piano Concerto (conducting from the keyboard); and rounded out the program with the Gloria and the Sanctus from the Mass in C; the concert aria Ah! perfido; improvisations at the keyboard, and the Choral Fantasy, written in great haste at the last moment as a grand finale.

If concertgoers that evening read their printed program — the luxury of program notes still many decades in the future—  they would have found the following brief guide to the Sixth Symphony, in Beethoven’s own words:

Pastoral Symphony, more an expression of feeling than painting. 1st piece: pleasant feelings which awaken in men on arriving in the countryside. 2nd piece: scene by the brook. 3rd piece: merry gathering of country people, interrupted by 4th piece: thunder and storm, into which breaks 5th piece: salutary feelings combined with thanks to the Deity.

Although Beethoven wasn’t by nature a man of words (spelling and punctuation led a perilous existence in his hands), he normally said what he meant. We must then take him at his word, believing that he had good reason (for the only time in his career) to preface his music with a few well-chosen words and that curious disclaimer “more an expression of feeling than painting.” Perhaps Beethoven was anticipating the controversy to follow, for in 1808, symphonies weren’t supposed to depict postcard scenes or bad weather.

Beethoven’s idea itself was neither novel nor his own. In 1784 (Beethoven was only fourteen), an obscure composer named Justin Heinrich Knecht advertised his newest symphonic creation: Le portrait musical de la nature (A musical portrait of nature) in five movements, including a depiction of the peaceful countryside, the approach of a storm, and a general thanksgiving to the creator once the clouds had passed. It would take hearing no more than a measure or two of music to explain why Knecht has remained obscure while Beethoven turned the music world upside down. The descriptive writing and pastoral subject matter of Beethoven’s symphony are a throwback to the baroque era—think of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons or the Pastoral Symphony in the Messiah—or at least to Haydn’s two oratorios, The Creation and The Seasons, the latter written only half a dozen years earlier.

History books are right, of course, to point out the work’s novelties: the “extra” movement, the descriptive titles, the programmatic element, and pictorial details like the bird calls in the slow movement and the village band in the scherzo. But Beethoven was also right in trusting that “he who has ever had a notion of country life can imagine without too many descriptive words what the composer has intended.”

Our familiar picture of Beethoven, cross and deaf, slumped in total absorption over his sketches, doesn’t easily allow for Beethoven the nature-lover. But he liked nothing more than a walk in the woods, where he could wander undisturbed, stopping from time to time to scribble a new idea on the folded sheets of music paper he always carried in his pocket. “No one,” he wrote to Therese Malfati two years after the premiere of the Pastoral Symphony, “can love the country as much as I do. For surely woods, trees, and rocks produce the echo which man desires to hear.”

They’re all here in his Sixth Symphony. The most surprising thing about the opening Allegro is how quiet it is: seldom in five hundred measures of music (well over ten minutes) does Beethoven raise his voice. Surely no composer—including the so-called minimalists—has so clearly understood the impact of repeating a simple idea unaltered, or slowing the rate of harmonic change to a standstill. When, near the beginning of the development section, Beethoven changes the harmony only once in the course of fifty measures, the effect of that shift from B-flat to D is breathtaking. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this spacious, relaxed, blissfully untroubled movement is that it comes from the same pen that gave us— at the same time, no less—that firecracker of a symphony, his Fifth, in C minor.

Not even Donald Tovey, with his precise use of language, could find a better word to describe Beethoven’s slow movement than “lazy.” We can be sure that the laziness is intentional, and it’s amazing how much this least restful of composers seems to enjoy the drowsy pace, the endless dawdling over details, the self-indulgent repetitions of favorite sections, and the unchecked meandering through the byways of sonata form. Beethoven begins with a gentle babbling brook (one of those undulating accompaniment figures that Schubert would later do to perfection) and ends with notorious bird calls. The only problem with the birds is that Beethoven calls so much attention to them, bringing the music—and the brook—to a halt, and then specifying first the nightingale (flute), then the quail (oboe), and finally the cuckoo (clarinet). But as many a writer has pointed out, the birds are no more out of place here than a cadenza in a concerto—the nightingale even provides the final obligatory trill.

The third movement is dance music, with a plain, homely, rustic peasant dance for a midsection trio. But the fun is cut short by dark clouds and the prospect of rain. There’s probably no more impressive storm in all music—the whole orchestra surges and shakes, trombones appear (for the first time) to emphasize the downpour, and the timpani shows up just to add the thunder. This is, of course, no extra “movement” at all, but merely a lengthy, rapid introduction to the finale. The clouds finally roll away, the oboe promises better things to come in a wonderfully heartfelt phrase, and the flute, with its staccato scale, raises the curtain on Elysium. And so, to the yodeling of the clarinet and horn, we willingly believe F major to be the most beautiful key on earth. The moment is parallel to the great triumphant sunburst that marks the arrival of the finale of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, and, although the means could hardly be less similar, the effect is just as wondrous.

 

Want to sabotage your self esteem?

Try comparing yourself to Camille Saint-Saëns. The renowned composer and teacher was also a virtuoso pianist and organist, as well as a travel writer, poet, and playwright. He had a photographic memory and spoke several languages fluently. He demonstrated perfect pitch at two years old and started composing at four. At ten he made his formal debut in Paris, performing works by Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven. He wrote his first two symphonies during adolescence and continued to dazzle as an adult. At 72, he became the first major composer to score a film. By the time he died, at 86, he had completed more than 200 musical works, in virtually every genre, and was still getting gigs as a concert pianist. “I produce music the way an apple tree produces apples,” he famously declared. It ain’t bragging if it’s true, but it’s still highly irritating. Regular people struggle. Saint-Saëns, freakishly, did not.

When Saint-Saëns finished his fifth and final piano concerto, early in 1896, he was 60 years old. He needed a dazzling new showpiece for a celebration later that year marking the 50th anniversary of his debut as a performer (at 10—the jerk!). Although it had been 20 years since his last piano concerto—Saint-Saëns composed relatively little for the instrument, surprisingly—his apple-tree analogy remained apt. The work’s nickname, “Egyptian,” didn’t originate with Saint-Saëns, but it seems inevitable. He composed most of it while on vacation in Luxor, and, at least for him, it’s unusually programmatic. Explaining that the concerto represented a “sea voyage,” he provided many picturesque details to support his claim. But rather than strictly portraying a single country, the “Egyptian” compiles a world-traveler’s far-flung impressions. 

The opening Allegro animato subjects a simple melody to increasingly intricate formal procedures, with vaguely modal harmonies hinting at exotic destinations. Rippling piano textures and pulsing orchestration remind us that we travel by sea.

To quote the composer, the second movement “takes us… on a journey to the East and even, in the passage in F-sharp, to the Far East.” Here Saint-Saëns refers to the pentatonic melody picked out by the piano, a startling bit of proto-Minimalism that brings to mind a Javanese “Chopsticks.” With its hypnotic, chiming overtones and gamelan allure, it almost eclipses the main theme, which Saint-Saëns described as “a Nubian love song.” He claimed to have scribbled the tune on one of his sleeves after hearing it sung by boatmen on the Nile. As the Andante closes, Spanish-inflected dance rhythms subside in a nocturne of chirping crickets, croaking frogs.

The remarkably brief Allegro molto brims over with a madcap energy. Jazzy syncopation vies with sweeping bravura gestures. Coloristic effects describe everything from motorized propellers to restless trade winds. Saint-Saëns explained that the finale expresses “the joy of a sea crossing,” but this is clearly a hectic, queasy kind of joy. In fact, the notoriously tricky solo part was later used as an examination piece for aspiring pianists at the Paris Conservatory.

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Credit – René Spencer Saller

World War I caused a collective shuddering of the soul throughout the world. The attendant horrors — trench warfare, poison gas, mechanized weapons of destruction — set in motion a wave of revulsion and a profound questioning of traditional religious and secular ethical values. A yearning for spiritual comfort and for the perceived (if mythical) alleged sanity of the past sent many artists scurrying backward in time. The famed impresario Diaghilev approached Stravinsky to write a ballet based on the centuries-old commedia dell’arte. To win over the reluctant composer, Diaghilev showed his one-time collaborator several manuscripts he had brought to Paris from a recent trip to Italy. Stravinsky read through the various scores and found himself drawn to works attributed (several in error, one must add) to the short-lived composer Giovanni Pergolesi (1710–36), a talented transitional figure whose music breathes as much the air of the Baroque as the Rococo. ‘I looked,” said Stravinsky, “and I fell in love.” The fruit of this across-the-centuries encounter was Pulcinella, an essentially neo-Classic work — neo-Baroque is an even better term — that reined in Stravinsky’s self-styled primitivism as expressed most shockingly in his 1913 cri de guerre, The Rite of Spring. Stravinsky used Pergolesi’s melodies and bass lines more or less as handed down in the manuscripts shared by Diaghilev, overlaying the 18th-century material with irregular rhythmic phrases and piquant harmonies. He remained quite fond of this music, drawing material from the original ballet for the orchestral suite in 1922 (revised in 1947), adding further versions for violin and piano (1925, revised 1933) and for cello and piano (1932). The two duet versions were thorough rewrites; hence their new title, Suite italienne. Of special significance is that for the three decades subsequent to Stravinsky’s perusal of those manuscripts, much of his music — his entire neo-Classical output — derived from his serendipitous encounter with these infectious scores from the early 18th century.

Fittingly, the work opens with a rousing Sinfonia whose jesting manner sets the tone for the ballet suite. The ensuing movements, by turns humorous, lyrical and mock romantic, focus on the various ruses employed by the Neapolitan maidens seeking to attract the sly Pulcinella through their seductive dances.

The premiere of the original ballet was a brilliant collaboration of Stravinsky’s music, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russe dancers, Massine’s choreography and Picasso’s sets. Oh, to have been there!

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We couldn’t fit all our Christmas gift ideas for the classical music lover in your life into one post….so, we have two more brilliant ideas!

For the Piano Lovers

We all have that family member or friend who absolutely love the piano – and this year it works out perfectly to be able to get that person tickets to one of our concerts featuring two amazing pianists with two truly awesome pieces!

Jane Coop

– playing Beethoven’s Forth Piano Concerto

Saturday, May 2, 2020

This concert will mark Jane Coop’s sixth visit with the SSO. Long time fans and subscribers may remember her performing Beethoven’s first piano concerto in 2001, and now she will be gracing audiences with Beethoven’s third.

Paired with the Pastoral Symphony, this concert will satisfy all the Beethoven lovers, too!

Cancelled – Beethoven 250

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Thomas Yu

– playing Camille Saint-Saëns’ Egyptian Concerto

Saturday, February 8, 2020

Thomas Yu will also be returning, this being his fifth time with the SSO! Now it will be with the exotic sounds of Saint-Saëns fifth piano concerto.

Adding the flavour of Vincent Ho’s Earthbeat, Nicole Lizee’s Behind the Sound of Music, and Igor Stravinky’s Pulcinella Suite will make the palette of this concert quite an exciting and spicy treat.

Thomas Yu with the SSO

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Now…what about the art lover on your list?!

Artist Denyse Klette is a superstar….on top of being an artist whose work shows around the globe, and also on top of running Boheme Gallery here in Saskatoon, she somehow found total artistic genius to partner up with the SSO for her Composers Series.

 

 

 

Mozart was like his music.  Playful, humourous, glamourous, bursting with colour, and full of life!
The first in the series, Mozart has been a big splash with music lovers – he is the epitome of what we love most about making music.

 

 

 

 

 

“I am a lonely painter.  I live in a box of paints”
Joni Mitchell endures.  Her words have a timelessness to them, and her music is all at once simple and devastatingly complex.  Klette’s take on Joni allows for the viewer to feel the movement and intimacy of Joni’s music, while referencing her song “A Case of You”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is only one Beethoven.
Revolutionary. Brilliant. Powerful. Bold. Iconic.
Klette’s Beethoven is fearless and refuses to fit in – she somehow finds as many colours to match his vast musical palette.  His intense gaze and wild hair truly unforgettable!

 

To get a limited print of these incredible paintings, you can stop in at the SSO offices or purchase online at dklette.com

Adam Harris

We welcome Adam back for his second performance of Handel’s Messiah with the SSO!

Canadian baritone Adam Harris has been described as an intuitively musical and distinctively dramatic young performer.

He has most recently been engaged with Calgary Opera, performing the role of Barrington in the world premiere of Ghost Opera, Guy Cotter in the Canadian premiere of Everest and as Gregorio in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. Further credits include Ceprano in Rigoletto with Calgary Opera, Falke in Die Fledermaus at Koerner Hall, the Baritone in Kopernikus at the Banff Centre, Moralès in Carmen with the Mississauga Symphony, Marcello in La Bohème with Opera Kelowna, Argenio in Imeneo, Pluto in Orphée aux Enfers, Mr. Gobineau in The Medium, Masetto in Don Giovanni, Curly in Oklahoma! and The Lord Chancellor in Iolanthe.

At home both in Operatic and Concert work, Adam has performed Handel’s Messiah with the Saskatoon Symphony, Fauré’s Requiem, Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Christmas Carols and Five Mystical Songs with the Lyrica Chamber Choir, as well as Carmina Burana with the Indian River Festival and George Butterworth’s Six Songs from a Shropshire Lad alongside the University of Toronto Orchestra under the baton of conductor Uri Mayer.

Adam has appeared alongside Toronto based “Collectif” in their original production of “Fête” at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre and in “The Happenstancers” concert series, performing “Neuf Historiettes” by Jean Francaix (1912-1997).

Mr. Harris holds his MA from the University of Toronto Opera Division and and a Bachelor’s degree from Western University.

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