Concert at the Colburn School

This concert’s coming up quick (this Saturday). But it looks really interesting – especially for us big Beethoven fans! Thanks to Jim Eninger of the Clickable Chamber Newsletter for shairing this, and other news of concerts in our area.

COLBURN ORCHESTRA – Free
YEHUDA GILAD music director & conductor
ELIZABETH PITCAIRN violin, RONALD LEONARD cello, JOHN PERRY piano
Saturday, February 4, 2006 – 7:30PM – Zipper Concert Hall

Aficionados will have exceptionally high interest in this concert – a rare collaboration of premier faculty artists of USC Thornton School and the Colburn Conservatory performing Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto.” Arrive early to ensure a seat.

Program
Walter Piston: Divertimento for Nine Instruments
Mendelssohn: Symphony No.3 in A Minor, Op.56, “Scottish”
Beethoven: Concerto in C Major for piano, violin, cello and orchestra, Op.56, “The Triple Concerto”

The COLBURN ORCHESTRA of the Colburn School of Performing Arts’ Advanced Degree Program is the highest-level orchestra at the school.

For more information, click:
http://www.colburnschool.edu/EventDetail.asp?Event_ID=399

And this is why this concert, with the “Triple Concerto” sounds so interesting!:

Beethoven’s Triple Concerto is a hybrid of the rich harmonies of the early Romantic Era and the delicate precision of the Baroque concerto grosso. In the latter genre, an eighteenth century composer such as Bach or Handel would produce a work for orchestra with several soloists, and would structure the piece so that the melodies alternated between the orchestra and the solo group, known as the “concertino.” The orchestra would introduce a theme, and the concertino group would elaborate upon it. This is exactly what happens in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti.

Yet in the Classical Era of the late eighteenth century, the concerto grosso fell out of favor, and though hundreds of concerti emerged from this time, nearly all were for a single solo instrument. Beethoven, too, wrote mostly solo concerti, with this one exception, in which he seems to flash back to his early studies of Handel’s compositions. He does not trouble himself to retrieve the instrumental delicacy of his model. Beethoven had little use for Baroque-style airiness, but the interplay of multiple soloists and orchestra seems to have held his interest, and though his concertino writing is far more expansive than Handel would have allowed, it gives modern listeners an intriguing glimpse of how a master may choose to combine the best elements of different eras.

There’s more to the story, too, more to understanding Beethoven’s use of the instruments he chose, and the possible reasoning behind creating the work. I encourage you to read the rest of this great article here. And go see the concert! I hope to. 🙂