Beethoven’s orchestral music seems to do more – to say more, to build more, to reveal more and even to whisper and sing more – than music by composers of later generations who had far more colours and textures at their disposal courtesy of far bigger orchestras.
There is no better example of Beethoven’s endless resourcefulness than his Symphony No 5, from whose fearsome thunderclap of an opening the composer developed a new kind of symphonic discourse through relentless focus on one musical motto invested with unstoppable momentum. Jan Willem de Vriend is both conductor and guide in this exploration of what is perhaps the most iconic symphony ever written.
Our Beethoven series
Music was changed forever by Beethoven’s symphonies. These nine pieces, spanning the first quarter of the nineteenth century, changed the way composers write, musicians play and audiences listen. In one fell swoop, they transformed not just the scale and ambition of instrumental music but also the whole idea of musical creativity and performance and their place in society.
Two hundred years after the composer’s death, and after years of excellent and revelatory work with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra on Beethoven’s music, Jan Willem de Vriend conducts these nine pivotal works across the space of ten days at the Grieg Hall – a journey through the greatest body of orchestral works ever created that will renew not just the works themselves but also the musicians playing them and the audiences hearing them.
