Building on the Heroic - Review of The Orchestra Now Presentation of Beethoven's Eroica
Conductor and Artistic Director Leon Botstein. Photo credit: Matt Dine.
Question: can a concert ever contain too much Beethoven?
Most classical concerts fall on the side of variety—one piece by any composer is more than enough. Some might allow two—if the pieces selected built upon a theme or somehow related to one another. But an entire program? Even a classical music titan like Ludwig van Beethoven can overstay an audience’s welcome.
The Orchestra Now (TON) decided to go whole-hog on the issue. Its concert at Bard College’s Fisher Hall on Sunday (Feb. 9, 2020) contained works only by the illustrious German composer and early ones at that: his “Consecration of the House Overture,” his Piano Concerto No. 4, and his Symphony No. 3, Eroica. All three are fine examples from Beethoven’s early period, but aside from the Third Symphony which foreshadows his greatest achievements—Symphonies No. 5, 6 and beyond—the other two are simply credible compositions, innovative for their time but hardly heroic by today’s creative and performance standards.
Or is that the point?
Key to this issue is conductor and artistic director Leon Botstein’s dedicating this concert to his Bard Conservatory colleague and pianist, Peter Serkin who died of pancreatic cancer the previous weekend. Though the concert program was set months in advance, Botkin’s opening encomium cited Serkin’s heroic spirit which combined what the New York Times called his “technically pristine” playing with a “commitment to contemporary music.” Caught between the “Old World sense of [music] being a kind of religion” and the youth rebellion of the 1960s, Serkin forged his own path by becoming what one critic characterized as “the counterculture’s reluctant envoy to the straight concert world.”
Taking such a path, first as a performer and later as an instructor, enabled Serkin to pass along his working artist’s synthesized approach toward old and new to audiences and students. Anna Polonsky, one of Serkin’s pupils and current faculty member at nearby Vassar College, demonstrated his legacy during her rendition of the Beethoven piano concerto by combining her deft finger technique with the orchestra’s straightforward accompaniment to create a lyrical call-and-response (antiphony) exchange typical of African-American and contemporary pop music. Matthew Gregoire (bassoon), Gergo Kristian Toth (violin), and Ye Hu (clarinet) also merit special praise as part of their sections’ outstanding interpretive performances and as student ambassadors for the Conservatory and Beethoven’s music.
TON’s website states its Master of Music (3 year) and certificate program (2 year) curriculums provide “the kind of experience [students] might expect as career orchestral musicians—public performance, touring, recording” through being part of an “ensemble of forward-thinking, exceptional musicians who intend to redefine what it means to be an orchestra.” If finding the way on your life’s path toward becoming a successful and innovative career professional isn’t heroic, what is?
Beethoven would be so proud.