When I enter the VSO building, I always feel like I am in a fit of excitement. Especially I was more excited because this was my first visit in four months. Moreover, I like Beethoven, but I have never heard Beethoven’s piano concerto before, so I was looking forward to it. Today’s program was performed by VSO with conductor Dietrich Paredes.
The first piece to be played on this day was “The Hebrides (Fingal’s Cave), op. 26” of Felix Mendelssohn. It was a very unfamiliar piece that I have never heard of, so I read the introductory text in the brochure, but it was not easy to fully understand it just by reading it. When Mendelssohn visited to the Hebrides, the islands located at the northwest coast of Scotland, he got colossal and extraordinary impressions after he saw a grotto known as Fingal’s cave. Fingal is a name of a hero in old Scottish mythology. Like the strong impression he received, I also had a unique impression in this work. It started with a gentle, lovely melody and soon it turned out a mystique like watching fantasy movies. The magnificent melody was repeatedly played, it seemed as if huge waves and winds were coming in and out. In the meantime, I also felt a very colorful atmosphere in the ever-changing melody.
The second piece was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37 which I was impressed the most. A young French pianist David Kadouch performed as a companion. In 1800, when Beethoven wrote this piece, he was already losing his hearing. Perhaps that is why the overall atmosphere of this concerto had dark ambience, but at the same time I thought it had a romantic melody and passionate feeling in the piece. In the first movement, it gave off a feeling of gloom as if something were pressed own in the shadow, but this atmosphere kept interchanging with another bright atmosphere of soft melody that seemed to seek hope. The unique melody performance that seems to keep moving between major and minor modes is still memorable. The atmosphere with the first movement was definitely contrasted in the second movement, which began with a quiet and calm piano performance. It was like a watercolor paint depicting a peaceful pastoral scene. The third movement seemed to have the most outstanding performance of the piano in this piece. Orchestra instruments seemed to accompany the piano while piano gave out the general theme. Especially the piano performance in the end was so beautiful that it was overwhelming.
After this piano concerto, Kadouch played a single piano solo as an encore to the audience. Chopin’s Waltz Op. 64 no.2. It is one of Chopin’s most famous waltz and famous for its lyrical and elegant style. Kadouch wrapped up his stage with all the elegance and exquisite beauty of this waltz.
The next piece after the intermission was Beethoven’s the Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43: Overture, which was quite short. I read an introduction that was one of the only two ballet music composed by Beethoven and said it is very rare for the entire piece to be played for ballet nowadays but only the overture. Indeed, I have never heard of Beethoven writing a music for ballet. Probably because it was an overture, it seemed to have compressed a grand-scale symphony into a short passage rather than the feeling of a ballet.
The last piece of this day was Beethoven, Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 36. This was another piece that I was not familiar with, but the feeling I got from this piece was stunning. The first movement was grand, vibrant, and colorful. It was also said that this work was composed around the time he lost his hearing, and it indeed seemed to me that all the clangs and emotions that Beethoven had experienced at that time were bursting out. The mood at the second movement was calmer and softer and the singing-like melody was impressive. In the third movement, there was a contrast with the cross between a loud explosion-like melody and a small murmuring-like melody gave me strong impressions. The final movement was rough and passionate, but I also had an impression like a sense of humor as if a person was smiling and hopping here and there.
Overall, my appreciation for those pieces of Beethoven on this day was that he was a such a monstrous figure. All of those works were beyond my expectations, even though there was a sense of Beethoven that I had previously though of. The fact that theses works were made at the time when he was mentally and physically suffering was absolutely understandable why he is being praised as the great composer in this era.