BEETHOVEN SYMPHONY NO . 2
Nate Ryan
Lucas Meachem
GRAMMY Award-winning baritone Lucas Meachem , dubbed the “ rock star of opera ” by Opera Pulse , continues to captivate audiences worldwide with his “ earnest , appealing
baritone ” ( The New York Times ).
After a summer at San Francisco Opera , Meachem begins his 2023 – 24 season in the title role in Don Giovanni with the Los Angeles Opera and then creates the lead role of Jean-Dominique Bauby in the world premiere of Joby Talbot ’ s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly at The Dallas Opera . After appearing at Staatsoper Hamburg in the dual roles of Michele and Gianni Schicchi in Il Trittico , he heads to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for
Lucas Meachem
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
By James M . Keller
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born December 1770 in Bonn , Germany Died March 26 , 1827 in Vienna , Austria
SYMPHONY NO . 2 IN D MAJOR , OP . 36 [ 1801 – 1802 ]
It is no longer fashionable , as it was a century ago , to speak of Beethoven ’ s symphonies as inhabiting conflicting camps , with the even-numbered ones being conservative and reflective and the odd-numbered ones being radical and extroverted . It ’ s probably for the best . None of Beethoven ’ s nine symphonies are conservative — at least they weren ’ t when he composed them — and each embodies both introspection and bravado to some degree . the lead role in Mendelssohn ’ s Elijah and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for Zemlinsky ’ s Lyric Symphony . Meachem closes his season with two more appearances as Sharpless : first with the Metropolitan Opera , followed by Madrid ’ s Teatro Real .
Named the winner of San Francisco Opera ’ s inaugural “ Emerging Star of the Year ” Award in 2016 , Meachem has gone on to prolific careers in both the U . S . and Europe , including return appearances at the Metropolitan Opera , Los Angeles Opera , Santa Fe Opera , Dallas Opera , Washington National Opera , Houston Grand Opera , Chicago Lyric Opera , Teatro alla Scala , Teatro Real , Vienna Staatsoper , Royal Opera House , Glyndebourne Festival , Opéra national de Paris , Bayerische Staatsoper , and many more .
Meachem ’ s first solo album , Shall We Gather , was released in September 2021 on Rubicon Records and was described by The New Yorker as “ a plea for togetherness in a divided country . Meachem ’ s voice — a substantial and propulsive lyric baritone with pillowy edges — records beautifully .
Born in North Carolina , Lucas Meachem studied music at Appalachian State University , the Eastman School of Music , and Yale University before becoming an Adler Fellow with the San Francisco Opera .
Nonetheless , his symphonies do have strong individual characters and each leaves a discernable and specific impression in its wake . One finds in the Second Symphony adumbrations of all of the symphonies the composer would go on to write , but in this work we enter a world that will resonate most specifically in the Fourth , Sixth , and Eighth Symphonies . The Second and the Eighth stand out particularly as a spiritual pair , with the latter exploring related emotional terrain following a decade of intense musical exploration . Both pretend to be Classical symphonies though they transgress Classical models in important ways , and both come across as essentially musical arguments rather than Romantic reflections of personal exertions or other “ external ” factors . Beethoven ’ s Second seems an indispensable step along the path to
Beethoven ’ s Eighth , less imposing ( despite its greater length ) but fully as delightful , playing Mercury , perhaps , to the Jove of the Eighth , or Puck to its Falstaff .
The Second is the least performed of Beethoven ’ s symphonies — one of them would have to be — but when it is heard it proves irresistibly seductive . The music analyst Donald Francis Tovey remarked of its marvelous Larghetto that “ to many a musical child , or child in musical matters , this movement has brought about the first awakening to a sense of beauty in music .” He also argued that , while it does not strike us as exorbitantly radical in its content , Beethoven ’ s Second Symphony may not have had a lesser effect on ensuing music than some of his symphonies whose surface details make a more immediate and obvious impact . He considered it one of “ certain works which immediately impressed contemporaries as marking a startling advance in the art without a disconcerting change in its language .”
He was referring to the work ’ s musical language , to be sure , but here we also find a watershed moment in musical terminology . Beethoven nailed the peg into the coffin of the Classical minuet as the predictable structure for symphonic third movements , a role it played almost invariably in the symphonies of Haydn and Mozart . In truth , the character of symphonic third movements had been changing for some time , but it is in Beethoven ’ s Second Symphony that the semantic breakthrough takes place ; finally , the movement is called not a minuet but a Scherzo — literally , a musical joke .
Those who heard the premiere of the Second Symphony found the piece to be startling indeed , and the critics were reserved in their response . The Zeitung für die Elegante Welt found it wanting in comparison to Beethoven ’ s First Symphony , its critic expressing the opinion “ that the first symphony is better than the later one because it is developed with a lightness and is less forced , while in the second the striving for the new and surprising is already more apparent . However , it is obvious that both are not lacking in surprising and brilliant passages of beauty .” The critic was certainly right about the Second Symphony ’ s “ striving for the new .” The piece is often highly dramatic , from the long , searching , slow introduction of the opening movement , rich in harmonic surprises and cunning contrasts of orchestration , through to the outsize coda
44 OVERTURE / BSOmusic . org