Beethoven's 9th Symphony 'The Choral'
Poulenc: Gloria
Lynda Russell
Julia Batchelor Walsh
Joshua Ellicott
Ashley Riches
London Orchestra da Camera
Hertfordshire Chorus
David Temple conducting
Saturday 23 October 2010
7.30 pm
St Albans Abbey, Holywell Hill,
St Albans AL1 1BY
The Ninth Symphony is one of Beethoven’s many musical journeys from darkness into light. Almost all commentators on music have had something to say about the work, and their opinions have been so diverse that you wonder if they could possibly have been listening to the same piece! Many early audiences wrote the work off as the raving of a deaf lunatic, and nearly three decades into its life we find a reviewer for the Boston Atlas trying to explain it away politely as “the genius of the great man upon the ocean of harmony, without the compass which had so often guided him to his haven of success.” Yet Hector Berlioz wrote “There is a small minority of musicians, whose nature inclines them to consider carefully whatever may broaden the scope of art … and they assert that this work is the most magnificent expression of Beethoven’s genius …That is the view I share.” The famous Ode to Joy in the fourth movement instils Schiller’s words with the intensity of Beethoven’s expression in a choral passage that has become one of the world's best known pieces of music. Friedrich Nietzsche argued that “Beethoven’s music is music about music,” but ensuing generations have begged to differ. Beethoven’s Ninth has come to be music about the hopes and dreams of humankind.
Poulenc’s sense of humour and love of life shine through all his music, however solemn the text might be. One of his friends said of him, ‘There is in him something of the monk and the street urchin.’ The Gloria brilliantly expresses these characteristics, with its captivating mixture of solemnity and mischievous exuberance.
Listen to conductor David Temple talking about this concert:
Find out more about Hertfordshire Chorus by watching our latest video Passionate about Singing - click here to go to our YouTube channel (opens in new window).
