Overture Magazine: 2017-2018 Season March - April 2018 | Page 29

SYMPHONIC DANCES
Symphony Orchestra, the Munich
Philharmonic and the NDR Symphony
Orchestra under conductors such as the
late Lorin Maazel, Herbert Blomstedt,
Riccardo Chailly, Charles Dutoit,
Christoph Eschenbach, Thomas
Hengelbrock, Marek Janowski,
Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Christoph
von Dohnáyi.
Internationally, Steinbacher appears
with the New York Philharmonic; the
Boston, Chicago, London, National,
NHK, São Paulo and Sydney symphony
orchestras; Cleveland, Philadelphia and
Philharmonia orchestras; San Francisco,
Seattle and Vienna symphonies; Orchestre
National de France; Orchestre de Paris;
and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. Her
debuts at the Salzburg Festival, at the
Proms and at Carnegie Hall have been
praised by international press.
In the 2016 –2017 season, Steinbacher
appeared as principal guest artist with
the Frankfurter Museumsorchester under
Hartmut Haenchen. Highlights of the
season included her first tour with the
Oslo Philharmonic and Vasily Petrenko
and performances of Hindemith’s
Violin Concerto with the San Francisco
Symphony under Marek Janowski, with
the Danish National Symphony Orchestra
under Fabio Luisi and with the RSB
Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and
Vladimir Jurowski, among others.
As a CARE ambassador, Steinbacher
continually supports people in need.
In December 2011, she toured Japan,
commemorating the tsunami of the same
year. The DVD, Music of Hope, with her
recordings of this tour, was later released.
Her new CD Fantasies, Rhapsodies
and Daydreams with the Orchestre
Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and
Lawrence Foster includes virtuosic pieces
by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Vaughan Williams,
de Sarasate, Massenet and Waxman.
Earlier recordings include a Mozart
album with the Festival Strings Lucerne,
a CD with sonatas by Richard Strauss
and Franck with pianist Robert Kulek
and a collaboration with the Orchestre de
la Suisse Romande and Charles Dutoit
with violin concertos by Mendelssohn
and Tchaikovsky. Among many
international and national music prizes
and nominations, she was twice awarded
with the ECHO Klassik.
Steinbacher has been recording
exclusively for Pentatone Classics since
2009. Born into a family of musicians, she
has played the violin since the age of three
and studied with Ana Chumachenco at
the Munich Academy of Music since the
age of nine. Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis
is a source of musical inspiration and
guidance of hers.
Steinbacher currently plays the 1716
“Booth” Stradivarius, generously loaned
by the Nippon Music Foundation.
Arabella Steinbacher last appeared with the
BSO in April 2012, performing Beethoven’s
Violin Concerto, Jun Märkl, conductor.
About the Concert
SYMPHONY NO. 1 IN C MAJOR
Ludwig van Beethoven
Born in Bonn, Germany, December 16, 1770;
died in Vienna, Austria, March 26, 1827
Far too many people dismiss Beethoven’s
First Symphony as a lightweight i mitation
of Haydn and Mozart, unworthy to be
compared with the mighty symphonies
that followed. It is true that we find here
almost nothing of the heroic grappling
with issues of human aspiration and
triumph over adversity that dominates
his Third, Fifth and Ninth symphonies;
instead, this symphony is witty and joyous
from beginning to end. Yet already his
unmistakable voice and daring approach
are on display, especially in the bold
third-movement scherzo. Far more than
a summation of what the composer had
learned from 18th-century symphonic
tradition, the First delivered a warning
shot of the revolution he would launch
just three years later with his Third
Symphony, the dramatic “Eroica.”
The First was probably written in
1799 –1800, though sketches for it go
back to 1795 – 1796. Beethoven was slow
to tackle the symphonic genre; he waited
until he was nearly 30 and had already
written two piano concertos, many
sonatas and six string quartets. Under his
baton, his maiden symphony premiered
in Vienna on April 2, 1800 at a benefit
concert to raise money for himself; at
this concert, he also performed his First
Piano Concerto and works by Mozart
and Haydn. Haydn had been Beethoven’s
teacher off and on since the young
composer arrived in Vienna in 1792,
and, not surprisingly, the First Symphony
pays considerable tribute to the older
composer’s effervescent style.
With his very first chords—a pungent
dissonance resolving to a harmony not
belonging to the home key of C —
Beethoven serves notice that his is a new
voice. In fact, throughout the brief slow
The BSO

M A R –A P R 2018 / OV E R T U R E
27