{ program notes
marking his Mostly Mozart debut. In the 2016 – 2017 season he debuts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra with New York Philharmonic Music Director Alan Gilbert, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Seattle Symphony. He will embark on tours of the U. S. and Europe with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, with his frequent recital partner Alisa Weilerstein and performing a trio program with Weilerstein and clarinetist Anthony McGill. Other highlights include concerto performances in Japan, Hong Kong and Australia, the complete Beethoven concerto cycle in Marseille and several concerts at London’ s Wigmore Hall.
A recipient of both the Avery Fisher Career Grant and Lincoln Center’ s Martin E. Segal Award, Mr. Barnatan has performed with many of the world’ s foremost orchestras, from San Francisco to Lisbon. He has worked with such conductors as Gustavo Dudamel, Michael Tilson Thomas, Susanna Mälkki, Thomas Søndergård, Edo de Waart and Pinchas Zukerman. Passionate about contemporary music, in recent seasons the pianist has premiered new pieces composed for him by Matthias Pintscher, Sebastian Currier and Avner Dorman.
Mr. Barnatan’ s critically acclaimed discography includes Avie and Bridge recordings of the Schubert’ s solo piano works, as well as Darknesse Visible. Last October the pianist released Rachmaninov & Chopin: Cello Sonatas on Decca Classics with Ms. Weilerstein, which earned rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic.
Inon Barnatan is making his BSO debut.
About the concert:
Coriolan Overture, opus 62 Ludwig van Beethoven
Born in Bonn, Germany, December 17, 1770; died in Vienna, Austria, March 26, 1827
One of Shakespeare’ s most powerful tragedies is Coriolanus, the story( drawn from Plutarch’ s Lives) of a patrician Roman general destroyed by his overweening pride. After a decisive victory over the
Beethoven
Volscians, Coriolanus refuses the consulship of Rome because it requires him to humble himself before the plebians or commoners. Enraged at his arrogance, the people drive him into exile. But the willful general seeks revenge; he defects to his former enemies, the Volscians, and leads them against Rome. He battles his way to the very gates of Rome, where his compatriots send delegation after delegation asking him to spare his own city. When the stiff-necked warrior remains obdurate, his wife, mother and son go out to plead with him, and he finally relents. Furious at his betrayal, the Volscians put him to death.
Although Beethoven considered himself a republican and the foe of tyrants, he must have found many points in common with this haughty Roman. He, too, possessed an iron will and, convinced of his genius, would not bend his neck even to princes. Moreover, he had practical reasons for creating an overture on this subject. In 1807, the composer was currying favor with the Viennese poetplaywright Heinrich von Collin, who was influential at Vienna’ s Imperial Theatre and who had written his own version of the Coriolanus tragedy five years earlier. Beethoven wanted to secure a contract with the Theatre to write an opera each year for production there; he also hoped Collin would collaborate as his librettist. Though neither of these goals was realized, one of Beethoven’ s greatest overtures, the tensely dramatic Coriolan, was born. It introduced Collin’ s play at a performance on April 24, 1807.
A taut sonata form, the Coriolan Overture musically describes the full tragedy in just eight minutes. It is cast in a significant
key for Beethoven, C minor, which Michael Steinberg calls his“ clenched-fist” key; it also colored other heroic works, notably his Fifth Symphony. Three massive Cs exploding into violent chords open the piece; they are separated by dramatic pauses, which will be an important element throughout. Here is a titanic yet concise portrait of a hero ruled by will and rage. Coriolanus’ restless temperament is further delineated by the fitful, evermodulating principal theme that follows. Its opposite is the lovely, flowing second theme, representing the feminine pleas of the warrior’ s wife and mother. When the massive Cs return for the third and final time, Beethoven foretells the hero’ s fate: Coriolanus’ music suddenly disintegrates into the silence of death, ending with three almost inaudible plucked Cs.
Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor
Ludwig van Beethoven
With his Third Concerto, and his only one in the minor mode, Beethoven decisively declared his independence as a composer. In Donald Francis Tovey’ s words,“ It is one of the works in which we most clearly see the style of his first period preparing to develop into that of his second,” the“ heroic” period that would soon produce its namesake, the“ Eroica” Symphony.
Musicologists are not certain when this concerto was actually composed. The year 1800 is often cited, but the work was not premiered until April 1803, in a concert at Vienna’ s Theater an der Wien that also included Beethoven’ s First and Second Symphonies. So he may have spent those intervening years refining this work in the painstaking fashion characteristic of much of his composing. And the revisions must have continued right up to the premiere. After a marathon all-day rehearsal of this ambitious program, the composer’ s friend Ignaz von Seyfried remembered the concerto’ s first performance as a helter-skelter
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