Program Notes:
Beethoven's "Eroica"

Featuring BCO soloists Kathleen O'Donnell and Alan Weiss (flutes) and Sandra Stecher Kott (violin)
April 15 & 17, 2005

• Robert Aldridge: "Brand New Day" (An Orchestral Overture)
  
• Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049 (for 2 flutes, violin, & string orchestra)
  
• Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op.55 ("Eroica")
  

Robert Aldridge: "Brand New Day" (An Orchestral Overture)

"You take a deep breath and start your day, only today, everything — almost everything — will go right."

Brand New Day was commissioned by Steve Lipsitt and the Boston Classical Orchestra for their 25th season in 2004-05. It is a nine-minute orchestral overture. I wanted to write an exuberant and celebratory work for this wonderful occasion. It is structured much like a classical overture, with a brief, slow and dramatic introduction, followed by a light, lively and remarkably simple and repetetive theme. The piece is firmly rooted in C major, and the meter is either in 7/4 or in a compound, 4/4 + 3/4 + 2/4 throughout the work. The overture is somewhat programmatic: the slow introduction represents gradually becoming conscious in the morning, followed by the activity of the day. On this particular day it would seem, most everything goes right, and for now, a kind of ecstasy reigns. It doesn't happen often, does it? But it's sure fun when it does!

I'm very happy to have been asked to be a part of the anniversary celebration of the Boston Classical Orchestra, and I'm thrilled to be working again with Steve Lipsitt, a truly exceptional musician, conductor and human being. Thanks to Steve and to all of the players, for bringing this piece to life.

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049 (for 2 flutes, violin, & string orchestra)

A set of six or twelve Baroque concerti would typically be scored similarly, if not identically. Each of Bach's great Brandenburg Concerti, however, is differently scored from the others. True, Nos. 3 and 6, which have both been played by the Boston Classical Orchestra in recent years, are both for a body of strings alone, but in No. 6 the violins are omitted and violas da gamba added. Horns are unique to No. 1 and the trumpet to No. 2. This diversity of sonority may be due to Bach's desire to display his mastery of various instrumental combinations. The pieces were written between 1718 and 1721 for the Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, in whom Bach hoped to find a future employer. Nothing ever came of it, but we are the happy beneficiaries of Bach's effort. Nos. 2 and 5 both call for a single flute or recorder, but only No. 4 calls for a pair,along with a solo violin. This trio forms the solo body, or concertino, versus the main body of strings, or ripieno, in this concerto grosso. The Fourth was probably composed during the winter of 1719-20. Although the First Concerto is the longest of the group, the first movement of No. 4 is the most extended individual movement, running over 400 bars. As Albert Fuller has written, "Bach fills this luxurious space with a wonderful variety of textures, from smooth and delicate to incisive and flying." The slow movement is a heartfelt Andante in E minor. The sunny finale is in the form of a gavotte. It gets under way with the various string sections imitating the opening theme before it is taken up by the flutes. Just before the conclusion of the work, there is a very effective passage involving three rests, reminding us that music is made up of sound and silence.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op.55 ("Eroica")

To bandy superlatives is at best injudicious, but I think it may safely be affirmed that the "Eroica" is the most important symphony ever written. Sir George Grove, the creator of the now indispensable Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, called it Beethoven's "first obviously revolutionary music." Romain Rolland likened it to the discovery of the New World: "The 'Eroica' is Columbus's caravel, the first to reach an unknown continent." To begin with, one can point to the unusual length of the symphony, nearly twice as long as most of its largest predecessors, but more important than the length per se is the substance. The first movement, which must be the greatest of any symphony, not surpassed even by that of the magnificent Ninth, does indeed open new vistas. In previous symphonies, including Beethoven's own, the development section of the first movement is almost always substantially shorter than the exposition, but in the 'Eroica' it is two-thirds longer, and the coda, which traditionally was no more than a short final statement, is here only a few bars shorter than the exposition! It is important to stress that this length is not merely a garrulous expansion, not a case of "padding" or of stretching out for its own sake: rather it is an exhaustive working out of the themes and a concentrated building of energy and power. True, Beethoven takes the unusual step of introducing an entirely new theme in the development, but there is never any question of lack of proportion or equilibrium. The construct that culminates in this brilliant edifice is monumental, but not monstrous.

It is tempting to assume that one of the qualities contributing to this greatness is the size of the orchestra, because the work sounds so much bigger than anything that had gone before, but in fact the orchestration is the same as that used by Mozart in his "Haffner" Symphony and Haydn in his "Clock" Symphony, except that Beethoven adds a third horn (used most obviously in the trio of the Scherzo).

Beethoven probably conceived the scheme of his new symphony in 1802, just after penning his heartbreaking "Heiligenstadt Testament," a document in which the composer despaired at the gradual loss of his hearing and even expressed thoughts of suicide. Yet he roused himself and wrote to his doctor "I will seize fate by the throat." The result was the "Eroica." As James Lyons once wrote, "Has there ever been so steely an affirmation of will power?" The actual composition occupied Beethoven during 1803. He planned to dedicate the symphony to Napoleon, whom Beethoven admired as a liberator and fellow revolutionary. It was not Napoleon's military genius to which Beethoven was paying tribute but rather his republicanism and rejection of the ancien régime. This was the same spirit that led Beethoven to set Schiller's words "all men shall be brothers" in the Ninth Symphony. But when the First Consul declared himself Emperor in May 1804, Beethoven was infuriated and tore the inscription from the title page. He now saw Bonaparte as infected with the same ambition and desire for self-aggrandizement that plagued lesser men and dreaded his becoming a tyrant. The symphony thus received a new title: Sinfonia eroica-per festeggiar il suovenire d'un gran uomo. "Heroic Symphony to celebrate the memory of a great man". (The composer's later sentiments regarding Napoleon can be seen from the work he wrote to celebrate the battle of Vittoria in 1813: "Wellington's Victory".) The slow movement, a Funeral March in C minor, personifies the memorial. (One should not too get wrapped up in the association of this work with Napoleon; in the final analysis, the score exhibits greater universality, and it is just as well for posterity that it lost its connection to any individual other than Beethoven himself.) One of the extraordinary characteristics of this Adagio assai rests in its form. Normally, symphonic slow movements would be in sonata form or a set of variations, but this one actually exhibits a rondo structure and contains a fugato toward the end. As noted above, one of the most striking innovations in the Scherzo is the use of three horns in its Trio section. Another is the time change that occurs out of the blue in the final restatement of the descending motive just before the end. The Finale, described by William Drabkin as "the composer's first major synthesis of variation and sonata-form principles," uses as its subject an idea that seems to have possessed Beethoven, for he had used it in no fewer than three earlier works. It first appears as a dance in his ballet The Creatures of Prometheus (whose overture was played by this orchestra in November), then it crops up as the seventh in a series of 12 Contredanses for orchestra (WoO 14); finally, Beethoven had already used it as the basis of a set of variations in a piano work of 1802, known retroactively as the "Eroica" Variations, Op.35.

This amazing symphony had its première in late January 1805 at the home of a banker named Würth. The first public performance was given at the Theater an der Wien on 7 April. It bears a dedication to Prince Lobkowitz, one of Beethoven's generous patrons, who repeatedly arranged for extra performances of the score, as if to help audiences acclimatize themselves to its uncompromising demands. Again to quote Romain Rolland: "The Eroica is a miracle even among Beethoven's works. If later he went further, never did he take so big a single stride."

SCHEDULE & TICKETS  •  ABOUT US  •  PROGRAM NOTES  •  SUPPORT US  •  CONTACT US  •  SITE MAP & CREDITS