Eschenbach's Elegant Charm Sets Stage for Beethoven Festival

Christoph Eschenbach opened this year's Beethoven Festival on Thursday, Aug 31 with vitality and grace and he and the Philadelphia Orchestra were received with hearty applause from a nearly full house.

The ease of his movements, and especially the diversity of sound he drew from the orchestra, revealed not only his profound musical understanding of the works, but also his uncommon ability to convey the music as if conversing with the audience.

A Beethoven sandwich, hold the mayo

Ludwig van Beethoven's Haydn-like First Symphony, followed by Matthias Pintscher's "Hérodiade-Fragmente" for orchestra and soprano and topped off with Beethoven's Seventh Symphony -- a typical program for Eschenbach's orchestra.

Eschenbach said in an interview with Deutsche Welle that the Philadelphia Orchestra performed all the Beethoven symphonies last season, consistently "sandwiching" them around contrasting works from the 20th and 21st centuries.

The 66-year-old conductor is in his third year as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is considered one of the top five in the US.

Caught between Haydn and modernity

Beethoven's First Symphony, completed in 1800, represents the crossover from Classical to Romantic. In form, instrumentation and scope it is similar to the symphonies of Haydn, Beethoven's teacher, or even Mozart.

The subtle innovations in the work were more apparent to the turn-of-the-century audience than today. It begins on a dissonant chord, for example -- completely unheard of at the time. And the third movement is a minuet, paradoxically marked "Allegro molto e vivace," a tempo much too fast to dance to.

Eschenbach did indeed dance, however. His performance was characterized by a superb sense of lightness, which remained stylistically faithful to Beethoven and the instruments of the time. The pianissimos he drew out were remarkably quiet, yet never lacking in motion and vibrance.

The ultimate dance

By the time he completed his Seventh Symphony in 1812, Beethoven had matured as an innovative, cutting-edge composer. Richard Wagner called the Seventh Symphony, with its rich harmonies and dense textures, "the apotheosis of the dance."

Clara Schumann's father Friedrich Wiek commented that Beethoven must have been drunk when he wrote it, which presumably reflects its more non-traditional elements.

Beethoven himself conducted the premiere of the Seventh Symphony, although he was fully deaf at the time. The concert took place in 1813 in Vienna as a benefit to aid those wounded in the recent battle in Leipzig against Napoleon's invading army.

The audience listens to a Beethoven symphony with "cleansed ears" when a contemporary piece has been played just before it, said Eschenbach, and that was certainly the case Thursday evening.

Unaccustomed sounds from an ancient femme fatale

Matthias Pintscher's work, featuring American soprano Marisol Montalvo, was based on Stéphane Mallarmé's poem about the Biblical figure Queen Herodias, who spurred her daughter Salome to bring her the head of John the Baptist.

Visual but not programmatic, deliberate but also emotional -- "Hérodiade-Fragmente" was full of paradox and color. Its frequent pauses lent a jerky, uncertain quality to the piece. Could it be that Eschenbach also revealed uncertainty, or was that only the hesitancy of Herodias herself, torn between guilt and lust?

Montalvo's performance was convincing, despite the extreme technical challenges presented by the vocal part in the form of large leaps, sustained pitches in the upper register and the complex characterization of Herodias.

To Russia and beyond

What did the opening concert have to do with the theme for this year's festival -- Russia? Actually, not much. But the festival's strength and uniqueness is precisely its diversity.

Some 75 events presented by 2,000 international artists are planned for the next month. Beethoven and Russia may be the common thread holding it all together, but the festival goes well beyond that.

The South African National Youth Orchestra is one of those worthwhile tangents. Deutsche Welle is sponsoring their one-week residency in Bonn, where they will premiere "Proteus Variations" by Hans Huyssen, commissioned by DW.

Click on the links below to view Deutsche Welle's complete interview with Christoph Eschenbach, learn more about the Beethoven Festival Bonn and listen to recordings of some of Beethoven's greatest works.