Beethoven was the founding father of the new symphonic genre of the programme overture. The Coriolan overture (1807) was written for the eponymous tragedy by Heinrich Joseph von Collin, Beethoven’s contemporary and friend.
Heinrich Joseph von Collin (1771–1811) was a poet and playwright, all but forgotten today, though who during his lifetime was hailed and acclaimed as the “Austrian Shakespeare”. Like Shakespeare, and apparently influenced by his tragedy Coriolanus, von Collin borrows the story of the Roman general Coriolanus from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives. It was for a theatre production of the tragedy in 1807 that Beethoven wrote what was subsequently to become this famous overture.
The composer was taken by the tragic figure of Coriolanus, who turned his gift as a military leader and general against his native Rome. Banished from the city and filled with a seething desire for revenge, he led a vast army to the walls of Rome. Coriolanus is utterly unbending regarding his former compatriots, but ceding to the prayers of his mother and his wife, he lowers the sword he has raised over his native city; the proud and uncompromising warrior turns this very sword upon himself.
Beethoven’s instrumental drama with its unusual expressiveness conveys all the psychological collisions of the tragedy. The contradictions that harrow Coriolanus’ soul are reflected in the main theme, which consists of a passionate impulse and a barrier standing in his path – the sharp accords of the tutti. The tortuous contradictions, full of the drama of suffering, are shaded by the secondary theme – melodious and feminine; here we can hear intonations of prayer. The emotional tenseness of the music reaches its culmination in the reprise, when once again we can hear the powerful opening accords of the overture. They slowly fade away, the impetuous leitmotif of Coriolanus measures its own pace and, powerless, it dissolves in the barely audible pizzicato of the strings.
In the series of heroic overtures by Beethoven that sing the victorious praises of the human spirit (Egmont and Leonora), the Coriolan overture occupies a special position. It depicts the tragedy of a broken conscience. Broken, but not recalcitrant – within it there burns the eternal flame of the Promethean Beethoven.
Iosif Raiskin
Concerto No 20 in D Minor for Piano and Orchestra is one of the most popular of Mozart’s concerti thanks to its romantic and passionate character. The first section precedes the emotional pages of Don Giovanni, while the third is the finale of Symphony No 40.
Mozart completed the score on 10 February 1785, and already the next day the composer performed his latest work in the casino room of the Mehlgrub at the opening of a series of six subscription concert. Performing the keyboard at the same time as conducting was his favourite method of influencing the public. It was Mozart, in the 1780s, who created a revolution, ridding the piano of its role as accompanist (which in line with tradition had been performed in the orchestra by the harpsichord and other keyboard instruments) and transformed it into a real soloist.
Mozart intended his concerti for the broader public. In a letter to his father he wrote: “It is concerti that are somewhere between too hard and too easy, there is much dazzle in them, they are pleasant to the ear, but, of course, they do not disappear into emptiness; in certain places there is satisfaction to be had only by connoisseurs – apropos, non-connoisseurs should inexplicably be pleased with them.”
Anna Bulycheva
Ludwig van Beethoven completed his Seventh Symphony in the spring of 1812. The work was not performed, however, until 8 December 1813 in a programme together with the battle symphony Wellington’s Victory, or the Battle of Vitoria. Following the years-long Napoleonic Wars, Austria was in a state of triumphant euphoria, and Beethoven’s newest symphony reflected the general mood better than anything else. The Seventh Symphony soon took its honoured place in the “cultural programme” of the Congress of Vienna.
Wagner referred to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony as the “apotheosis of dance.” It is, indeed, imbued with energetic rhythms and it contains not a single truly lento movement. The music of this symphony does not move from suffering towards joy – here the joy reigns throughout, starting with the first movement and concluding in utter ecstasy in the finale.
Beethoven dedicated the score of the symphony to his friend and patron Count Moritz von Fries and the arrangement for piano to Empress Elizabeth Alexeyevna, wife of Alexander I of Russia.
Anna Bulycheva
