LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Ouverture Coriolano op. 62
ROBERT SCHUMANN
Concerto for violin and orchestra in D minor
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Symphony no. 8 in F major op. 93
Violin
Simon Zhu
(57th Paganini Prize winner)
Conductor
Sir John Eliot Gardiner
Opera Carlo Felice Genova Orchestra
The programme opens with the Coriolano Overture, which Ludwig van Beethoven composed in 1807. The Overture was originally intended as an intermezzo to be performed during the first performance of Heinrich Joseph von Collin’s tragedy of the same name inspired by the Roman hero Gaius Marcius, but was not actually performed on that occasion, establishing itself instead as an independent piece. Beethoven’s writing here is strongly inspired by epic and heroic ideals, the same ones that characterised other famous orchestral works composed by Beethoven in the early 19th century, such as the Third and Fifth Symphonies. The intense expressiveness centres on the clash between the warlike dimension embodied by the hero Coriolano and the gentleness of the figures of his mother and wife, with a tormented alternation of themes and strongly contrasting rhythmic and harmonic solutions.
This was followed by Robert Schumann’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D minor, composed in the autumn of 1853. The composer had probably worked on this Concerto for the violinist Joseph Joachim, but the latter never performed it and it was only eighty years later that the Concerto was found among Joachim’s papers and finally performed by Georg Kulenkampff on 26 November 1937 at the Alte Philharmonie Saal in Berlin. The Concerto belongs to the full maturity of Schumann, who had largely established himself as one of the main references of German Romanticism. His aesthetic ideal is developed around the contrast between the two poles of the romantic spirit identified in the ideal characters of Florestan, heroic and overwhelming, and Eusebius, melancholic and sweet. In line with this poetic principle, in his last Concerto the composer also accentuates the contrast between great idealistic impetus and passages of lyrical suspension, particularly in the first and third movements. The line of the violin – an instrument previously employed by Schumann mainly in chamber music – is enhanced both in its incisive virtuosity and in its softer, more lyrical nuances.
In closing, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 8, composed between 1811 and 1812. With this work, the composer surprised the audience at the first performance (in Vienna, in 1814). In fact, the formal structure – with the reintroduction of the Minuet as the third movement – and the restrained dimensions were reminiscent of the classical models of Mozart and Haydn, from which Beethoven had distanced himself, especially in his later symphonies. On the other hand, it is evident that within this classical package, the composer continued his own research, experimenting with a special and luminous mixture of passionate impetus and ironic lightness, with precious harmonic innovations and plays of timbres and colours that would profoundly inspire Romantic symphonism.
Ludovica Gelpi
