Coriolan Overture in C minor, Opus 62 

Ludwig van Beethoven

Baptized December 17, 1770, Bonn: Died March 26, 1827, Vienna

In 1807, Beethoven finally found a chance to remedy a problem that had plagued him for some time, which was a desperate need for a new concert overture. Overtures were normally played at the beginning of an orchestra concert, but, embarrassingly enough, Beethoven only had one, The Creatures of Prometheus, to use for his many performances. He set about writing a new overture on the topic of the Roman General Coriolanus, whose tragic story had been immortalized by Shakespeare. Beethoven was not familiar with Shakespeare’s version and instead knew Coriolan from a play of the same name by his friend Heinrich Josef von Collin, which had been performed in Vienna a few years earlier. In Collin’s version, the military hero Coriolan becomes a consul but is exiled from Rome after making some unfortunate political comments. He leads an army against Rome in hopes of taking revenge, but is met at the city gates by his mother, wife, and children, who beg him to be merciful, and he takes his own life rather than be executed as a traitor. Coriolan’s suicide was a crucial shift in Collin’s play that made the character resonate strongly with Beethoven, who admired his pride and sense of justice (Coriolan is assassinated in Shakespeare). Though Beethoven was outwardly bold and self-assured, the composer felt humiliated by his deafness and his dependence on rich patrons for financial support. He had contemplated suicide in response to his swiftly advancing hearing loss and respected Coriolan’s decision to end his life rather than face further disgrace.

The first performance of the Coriolan Overture was given at the palace of Prince Lobkowitz on March 8, 1807, and the piece was heard again one month later in a revival of Collin’s play. The overture opens with the sounds of war in the orchestra, using tense sustains and sudden crashes that bring to mind Coriolan’s heroism and strength. This music is balanced by a tender melody that symbolizes his family pleading for mercy at the gates of Rome, and his death is represented in the coda, which is quiet with a feeling of resigned acceptance.

 Double Concerto for Clarinet, Cello, and Orchestra

Jonathan Russell (1979-present)

The combination of clarinet and cello has special significance for me. My wife plays the cello, and we fell in love in college while playing the Brahms Clarinet Quintet together, a profound and passionate work featuring many beautifully interlocking clarinet and cello lines. It should perhaps come as no surprise, then, that the Double Concerto for Clarinet, Cello, and Orchestra turned out to be one of the most lyrical, romantic pieces I’ve ever written.

The work is in two movements. The first is a slowly unfolding, lyrical pastorale, reminiscent of Romantic 20th century composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams or Samuel Barber. The second movement is fast and relentless, with lyrical melodies dancing over driving rhythms, and a tasty dash of Klezmer in the movement’s second theme. Towards the end, material from the first movement returns in a new guise, bringing the work full circle. Throughout the piece, the soloists often graciously alternate with one another, while also joining forces to sail above the orchestra together. While the piece frequently takes advantage of both instruments’ natural penchant for lyricism, the second movement also provides plenty of technical challenges and fireworks for both soloists.

The piece was commissioned and premiered by the Peninsula Symphony in 2014 with cellist Nathan Chan and myself as the soloists. The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra commissioned me to arrange this new version in 2021 (originally planned for 2020, it was postponed due to the pandemic). It is close to the original, but with the orchestral forces reduced: double instead of triple woodwinds, no trombones, tuba, or harp, 1 percussionist instead of 4, and smaller string sections. This smaller ensemble gives the piece a more intimate feeling and also creates space for more detail and subtlety in the soloists’ playing. I am thrilled to have my dear old friends and fantastic musicians, Jeff Anderle and Hannah Addario-Berry, appearing as the soloists, and am deeply grateful to Maestro Ben Simon and the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra for this opportunity to re-imagine the piece.

Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Opus 55 “Eroica”

Inspired by the popularity of rescue operas in France, Beethoven decided to compose a similar work that would call upon the many democratic, humanist, and anti-aristocratic principles that rescue operas championed. The rights of the individual as exemplified through personal and artistic freedoms were an important topic to Beethoven, who loathed his dependency on the patronage system prevalent in Vienna at the time and wanted to surpass its limitations. He was attracted to Napoleon’s early actions in France and saw him as a true champion of individual liberty, holding him in high esteem as a defender of the common man. The fact that Beethoven and Napoleon were only one year different in age further heightened the composer’s sense of connection to the charismatic leader.

Though his plans for opera wouldn’t pan out (at least, not until Fidelio a few years later), Beethoven’s admiration for Napoleon would manifest itself in another work, his Third Symphony, which was composed between 1803 and the spring of 1804. Beethoven dedicated the symphony to Napoleon, but made a substitution when his long-time patron, Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz, offered him a substantial fee for the honor instead. Beethoven settled on giving the symphony the subtitle “Bonaparte” as a suitable tribute, but had a swift change of heart when Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France in May of 1804. Beethoven’s student Ferdinand Ries delivered the bad news to his master personally, saying that Beethoven exclaimed, “Is he too, then, nothing more than an ordinary human being? Now he, too, will trample on the rights of man, and indulge only his ambition!” Then, continued Ries, “Beethoven went to the table, took hold of the title page by the top, tore it in two, and threw it to the floor.” After he recovered from the news of Napoleon’s betrayal, Beethoven made a new title page for the symphony with the name Sinfonia Eroica (Heroic Symphony) and the inscription “composed to celebrate the memory of a great man,” a reference to Napoleon’s former lofty ideals.

The Eroica Symphony premiered in 1804 at a private concert held in the home of Prince Lobkowitz, and the first public performance took place in April one year later at the Theater an der Wien. Audiences and critics were divided on the work, with some calling it a masterpiece and others deriding it for being too long and too confusing. One admiring critic wrote that there is “no lack of startling and beautiful passages in which the energetic and talented composer must be recognized,” while less-enthusiastic critics complained about the “undesirable originality” of the piece. An audience member is reported to have stood up and shouted: “I’ll pay another kreutzer if the thing will only stop!” Despite wide differences of opinion, it was perfectly clear to everyone that the Eroica Symphony sounded like nothing else in all of music. The piece inaugurated Beethoven’s stylistic middle period of composition – called his Heroic Period – which was characterized by fundamental changes to almost every aspect of compositional technique. It was double the length of the typical symphonies of the time, and Beethoven’s innovative uses of harmony, rhythm, form, and melody were a turning point in the direction of symphonic writing. The surprises start from the first measure of the first movement, with two crashing E-flat major chords that shocked audiences who were accustomed to Haydn’s slow symphonic introductions. Another memorable event comes in the recapitulation when the French horn sounds the opening theme before the other instruments, tricking the audience members into thinking the musician had played in the wrong place. The second movement is an unhurried funeral march with the somber melody in the oboe. This theme is developed in various ways as the movement progresses, but finally becomes fragmented at the very end as if grief is causing it to come undone. Beethoven plays with the use of strong and weak beats in the scherzo third movement, shifting the metric pulse during the swift themes for an off-kilter effect. The rapid repeated notes that make up the main theme rush between instruments, always leaving some confusion as to where they will appear next. The French horns shine in the stately middle section with glorious horn calls. The fourth movement is based on a theme that Beethoven used in a number of other works, including a set of piano variations and the overture Creatures of Prometheus. This movement acts as a series of ten variations during which Beethoven progressively builds his orchestration to the end of the piece, making the finale a triumphant celebration of the title’s symbolic hero.

Program Notes by Heike Hoffer