The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s Beethoven Festival (19-30 November) was a series of performances of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, conducted by Jaime Martín. The Festival gave Melbourne music-goers the opportunity to hear Beethoven’s magnificent symphonies live and perhaps discover some of his work they hadn’t heard before, as the evenings were programmed with lesser known symphonies paired with more well-known ones.
As he came of age during the French Revolution, Beethoven’s works during his early period (1797–1802) are perhaps his most exciting. The MSO’s rendering of these symphonies was, true to form, spectacular – with the gorgeous acoustics of Hamer Hall allowing the interweaving melodies to be heard as clearly as if you were on stage with the Orchestra itself.
The opening night of the Festival featured Beethoven’s 1st and 3rd Symphonies, as well as a series of pre-concert talks given by the MSO Library Manager, Luke Speedy-Hutton. The short, engaging, presentations detailed the historical period and Beethoven’s role as a leading cultural force for change throughout Europe, how this was reflected in his music and the references to both Mozart and Beethoven’s teacher Haydn.
For the uninitiated, the talks gave a welcomed primer on the context of the works and a fun little task of recognising certain melodies and parts mentioned by the librarian in the performances later that evening. For the more seasoned listener, Speedy-Hutton’s insight provided further musical analysis – and more importantly added a good bit of wit and entertainment to the night.
The conductor, Jaime Martín was an absolute joy to watch throughout the Festival, with his conducting performance seeming to be just as much for the audience as the orchestra. The spectacle of Martín’s vigorous punches into the air anticipating the thrusts of the string bows, his dance-like movements and near leaps at high points of the evening added a fantastic visual element to the show.
It wasn’t only Martín’s eccentric gestures that the audience enjoyed though, but in especially intense parts of the symphonies (like the 4th movement of Symphony No 3) one could hear the sound of the conductor’s boots stomping along with the orchestra! With the sound of the timpani always difficult to separate from an association with guns, cannon fire and marching boots, Martín had quite literally become part of the night’s sound, drawing further that connection to the Napoleonic Wars.
The Festival finished with a magnificent final rendition of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, paired with a wonderfully entertaining piece from Scottish composer, James MacMillan. The programming of this final night showed the dramatic breadth of the MSO’s stylistic and emotional output. The concert began with MacMillan’s Concerto for Orchestra. While MacMillan is indebted to Beethoven and was obviously inspired by many of his signature techniques, the contrast between the two composers’ works couldn’t be starker. MacMillan’s piece had a much larger focus on percussion, with experimental break-beat rock-style drum grooves as well as extended techniques from the strings, rapidly smacking their bows across the strings to get a more percussive sound.
While the percussive elements took centre stage in MacMillan’s piece, the sharing around of the motifs among the sections, breaking up the main melodies and hinting at them throughout, almost toying with the audience, was very reminiscent of Beethoven’s treatment of motif and melody in his symphonies. In particular the 9th Symphony, which begins with that beautifully simple main motif in the 1st movement that is strikingly present throughout the rest of the movements, even the infamous 4th (Ode to Joy).
After the interval, the audience waited with bated breath, in anticipation of the gorgeous opening of the 1st movement of Beethoven’s 9th. With the dazzling interplay between the first two motifs, one can truly appreciate why Theodor Adorno wrote that “Beethoven’s music is Hegel’s Philosophy”. Both pre-eminent German artists in their respective fields and both inspired by the French Revolution and Napoleon, Beethoven and Hegel may not have engaged with each other’s works directly, but the mediation and dialectical development of the motifs in the 1st movement suggest that there just must’ve been something in the water in early 19th century Germany.
The influence of this period of European history on Beethoven’s writing is perhaps most profoundly felt in his 3rd Symphony. Not only can the listener hear the association with war and battles, but if they had attended the pre-concert talks, they would have learned that, in 1802, when Beethoven began writing the piece, he had initially dedicated it to Napoleon, before erasing it after the latter crowned himself as emperor in 1804.
Slavoj Zizek recently wrote that the 2nd movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony “is supposed to render lively joy, but it does so with a touch of frantic madness – Stanley Kubrick was right when he used this movement as the music for his dystopian masterpiece A Clockwork Orange“. The MSO pulled off this delicate balance of lively joy and frantic madness beautifully, with conductor Martín adding to the scene with his signature high-spirited style.
After the conclusion of the 2nd movement, the vocalists began to line the aisles of the stage: the four soloists, Lauren Fagan (soprano), Margaret Plummer (mezzo-soprano), Stuart Skelton (tenor) and Shenyang (bass-baritone), joined by the MSO Chorus and the Auslan choir. The vocalists rested throughout the 3rd movement, building even greater anticipation for the triumphant 4th as the loud orchestral fanfares played with the octaves of the first violins.
If you haven’t listened to a recording of the 4th movement of Beethoven’s 9th, I implore you to find a recording immediately, as words cannot adequately describe it. After the first soloist concluded and the choir began to echo throughout the hall, this reviewer instantly got goosebumps. There is nothing quite like those screeching high harmonies over the full choir and triumphant orchestra. The entire Symphony, the entire Festival, had built to this moment and the climax was breathtaking.
The soloists were all incredible, particularly the soprano and mezzo-soprano performances by Fagan and Plummer. The pitch placement and vibrato was beyond anything I’ve heard from a classical singer in my years of tertiary music education. If you ever have the chance to hear any of them or the awe-inspiring MSO Chorus or Auslan choir, you simply must.
As the 4th movement came to its end the audience erupted into a five-minute long standing ovation. Martín, as always, directed the applause to the soloists and musicians on stage, graciously thanking the four solo vocalists and instrumental soloists and section leaders.
As the Festival came to a close and I looked through my notes on the train home, I noticed that at a point about halfway through the 4th movement I had just stopped writing. Something about the upper harmonies in the MSO Chorus and the interplay with the Orchestra had struck me in such a profound way that I had forgotten to write. If anything, I hope this shows how powerful the music of Beethoven can be, and the masterful skill of the entire MSO and Martín.
Read: Musical review: A Christmas Carol, Comedy Theatre
The Beethoven Festival has been such an exciting addition to the Melbourne music scene this past month. Among large concerts from hip-hop, indie rock and pop artists in the same city, Beethoven still holds up and the MSO continues to deliver some of the most inspired and emotionally poignant performances on the continent.
If you missed this Festival and are itching to hear something similar, the MSO is performing Handel’s Messiah over the next week.
Beethoven Festival was performed from 19-30 November 2024 at Hamer Hall by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
