Beethoven“ reconciles what is strange and incompatible.”
The Avant Garde
Classicist
Beethoven“ reconciles what is strange and incompatible.”
By Martha Thomas
Some musicians just can’ t get enough Ludwig van Beethoven.“ Every time you look at one of his pieces, you can look at it a different way,” says Christopher Costanza, cellist for the St. Lawrence String Quartet( SLSQ).“ It’ s like looking at a sculpture from different angles, or a painting in different light. There’ s so much depth, so many components.”
The SLSQ will play two of Beethoven’ s string quartets— No. 16, op. 135 and No. 14, op. 131— at Johns Hopkins’ Shriver Hall as part of the BSO’ s special Beethoven Weekend( Nov. 18 – 20) to culminate the orchestra’ s centennial celebration. That weekend, the quartet will also appear with the BSO to play John Adams’ Absolute Jest, which the composer says he crafted from“ fragments” of Beethoven string quartets, as well as“ familiar‘ tattoos’ from his symphonic scherzos.”
While Beethoven didn’ t invent the string quartet— his friend and teacher Joseph Haydn gets credit for that— Beethoven made the form his own.“ The five great, late Beethoven quartets,” says Costanza, are, from the point of view of a string player,“ among the most
remarkable performing experiences you can ever have.”
BSO Music Director Marin Alsop describes Beethoven as the“ seminal classical composer.” For that reason, she says,“ it’ s important to go back to him and continue to explore his work.”
Alsop’ s inaugural season with the BSO included all the composer’ s symphonies.“ We paired them with living composers, trying to make the connection to the‘ Beethovens of our time,’” she says( see box). A decade later, says Alsop, is a good time to revisit the master she calls“ the measuring stick for every composer who succeeded him.”
In the 2016 – 2017 season, the BSO is focusing on the great master by presenting four Beethoven symphonies( Nos. 4, 5, 7 and 9) and five piano concerti( 1 – 5), in addition to the SLSQ program. The lineup opened with“ Ode to Joy”( from Beethoven’ s Ninth) at the September gala, and will close in June with the Violin Concerto played by soloist Gil Shaham.
Beethoven is captivating not just for the breadth and power of his canon, but also for the fact that he is easy to study. Unlike the cryptic William Shakespeare, with whom the composer has been compared, much is known about Beethoven’ s
How Absolute Jest Is Inspired By the Master
Margaretta Mitchell |
John Adams |
“ You wouldn’ t think of it today,” says BSO Music Director Marin Alsop,“ but Beethoven’ s avant garde approach to writing music is an inspiration to contemporary composers.”
John Adams is one of those. Absolute Jest is“ filled with Beethoven quotes,” says Christopher Costanza, cellist for the St. Lawrence String
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Quartet.“ It almost becomes an obsession.” But, Costanza points out,“ Beethoven also obsessed over these parts.( Adams) is transforming them in his own way.” Adams has written three pieces for the SLSQ, including Absolute Jest. Working with the composer has given the musicians insight into Beethoven’ s creative approach, says Costanza. |
“ If you listen to the Beethoven scherzos” that inspired the Adams piece,“ certain components could almost be likened to a kind of minimalist writing, because of their repeated, driving qualities,” says Costanza.“ We learn about dead composers when we work with the live ones. Fundamentally, it’ s the same creative process.” |
8 Overture | www. bsomusic. org |