Compositions by Mozart and Beethoven to celebrate His Majesty the King's coronation.
Da-da-da Daaah!
It must be the most iconic motif to be found in the entire literature of western classical music. When Beethoven first started composing his Fifth Symphony in 1804, Europe was in a state of relative calm. The dreadful aftermath of the 1789 French Revolution was over, Britain and France had two years earlier signed a peace treaty after a decade of war, and the disasters of Napoleon's invasion of Russia were still some years away.
But Napoleon was on everyone's lips. In an elaborate ceremony that November he had himself crowned the first Emperor of France for over 1,000 years. At first Beethoven greatly admired Napoleon and wrote his Third Symphony partly in homage. Initially the subtitle of that symphony was Symphony Entitled Bonaparte. But after the coronation, Beethoven flew into a rage, shouting: "So he is no more than a common mortal! Now he, too, will tread underfoot all the rights of man; now he will think himself superior to all men. He will become a tyrant!"
Quickly he struck out the subtitle on the manuscript and inserted the name by which that Third Symphony is now more commonly known, the Eroica.
The concert will be conducted by Greek maestro Stefanos Tsialis.
That opening four-note motif of the Fifth Symphony has come down through time to be known by countless millions who have never heard the full work. Beethoven himself called it "fate knocking at the door". During World War II, it prefaced the British Broadcasting Corp's news bulletins, a symbol of defiance against Hitler's Nazi regime. In recent years it has been featured in two Oscar-winning films about that war -- Dunkirk and The Darkest Hour.
Getting the rhythm of those opening notes is not so easy for a conductor. The first three short notes do not form a triplet. They are instead three half notes, or quavers, which follow a silent first quaver in the bar. That silent one is often indicated by a downbeat after which the orchestra enters. But sometimes it can go wrong. This writer once heard the opening performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra as Da-da-da-da Dahaa! One group of instruments had badly mistaken the conductor's downbeat!
Throughout the symphony, that fate motif provides the impetus for the energy that drives this relatively short work forward. Unusually Beethoven links the third and final movements with drum beats and a long single chord crescendo that finally blasts forth into a mighty closing march.
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony closes the next Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra (RBSO) concert on Friday in the Main Hall of the Thailand Cultural Centre. Under the Royal Patronage of Her Royal Highness Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya, the concert will also include works by Mozart and the English composer William Walton. The concert is a celebration of the auspicious occasion of the recent coronation of His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
It sometimes happens that the children of great musicians themselves make their careers as musicians. One obvious example is the great Carlos Kleiber, considered by many of his peers as the greatest conductor ever to have lived. Son of the most distinguished conductor, Erich Kleiber, neither Kleiber made many recordings and Carlos maintained only a relatively small repertoire. Erich famously proclaimed: "A man who listens only to records is like one who eats only canned meat."
Erich initially did not wish his son to become another conductor. The great Russian pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy had no such qualms. One of his two sons, Vovka, has indeed become a professional pianist and often performs duo recitals with his father. His other son, Dimitri, also started piano lessons at the age of six, but then elected to concentrate on the clarinet. He has since become one of the most celebrated masters of that instrument performing concertos and chamber music in major concert halls around the world.
In addition to working with his father and brother, Dimitri has performed with many major artists and musicians including sopranos Barbara Bonney and Edita Gruberova, the great Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires and the cellist Antonio Meneses.
At the concert he will perform the popular Mozart Clarinet Concerto with the RBSO. Mozart wrote the concerto in 1791 just before he died at 36 years of age. It was an extraordinarily productive year for the still young composer during which he composed two major operas, The Magic Flute and La Clemenza Di Tito, a piano concerto, two string quartets, the Requiem and his last orchestral work, the Clarinet Concerto.
Like many works in the classical repertoire, the Clarinet Concerto soon fell out of favour. It was only in the middle of the 20th century that clarinettists began to re-examine the work and schedule performances. It has since become one of the most popular of all Mozart concertos and is generally considered among the finest concertos written for any instrument. As he lay dying in 1949, the composer Richard Strauss is alleged to have said, "I would have given anything" to have written that concerto!
The concert opens with British composer Sir William Walton's Crown Imperial March. This popular work was first performed at the coronation of King George VI in 1937. Britain's present queen then requested it be played at her coronation in 1952. The British royal connection does not end there. Prince William and his bride Kate Middleton asked for the work to be performed at their wedding in 2011.
Conducting the concert will be Greek maestro Stefanos Tsialis who is making his debut with the RBSO. Principal conductor and artistic director of the Athens State Orchestra since 2014, his guest conducting engagements have taken him to more than 80 orchestras in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Russia. He has been particularly associated with several major orchestras in Germany.
Of his interpretation of Edvard Grieg, the critic of the Berliner Zeitung wrote that Tsialis gave "an extremely affectionate interpretation, exquisitely supple, wonderfully balanced in terms of colour and with a confident sense of the charms of Grieg's score".
The "Crown Imperial For His Majesty" concert will be staged on Friday at the Thailand Cultural Centre. Tickets which cost 300, 700, 900, 1,200 and 1,500 baht are available via http://thaiticketmajor.com. Call 02-262-3456 or visit http://bangkoksymphony.org for more information.
