Beethoven turns 250 this year. He was a great composer, as everybody already knows. But in the midst of what will certainly be a mind-numbing hagiography, I can’t help but think that he would feel misunderstood by us. After all, he was much more in spiritual league with the flame-throwing radicals of the Jacobin rather than the cultural mainstream. What would the person who turned his back on princes and emperors say about today’s cultural worship of his music in the form of a well-heeled gala crowd at a symphony orchestra concert?

We propose another kind of birthday present. Building on the classical notion of interpolation to shed light on Beethoven’s impact on 20th and 21st music, we will nest among the movements of Beethoven’s mercurial First Symphony (1800) newer work that contains 20th and 21st century echoes of Beethoven’s mind. Webern’s Symphony, Dallapiccola’s Una Piccola Musica Notturna, and new music by PamelaZ and Anna Thorvaldsdottir help reveal the often unseen Beethoven: his formalism, his penchant for lyricism, and his wicked sense of humor. We hope to afford insight into parallel moments of cultural and political peril. From the turn of the 19th century in post-revolutionary Europe to the volatile time between world wars in the 20th century to our early 21st century michigas, these works, taken together, demonstrate the necessity for an artist to react to her or his time.

PROGRAM:

Pamela Z - Heiligenstadt Lamentation Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony #1, First Movement
Anton Webern - Symphony
Beethoven - Symphony #1, Second Movement
Luigi Dallapiccola - Una Piccola Musica Notturna
Beethoven - Symphony #1, Third Movement
Beethoven - Symphony #1, Fourth Movement
Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Aequilibria

The concert will be preceded by a conversation with Steven Schick and a distinguished panel including: Pamela Z, Lilian Faderman, and Henry Torres Blanco, entitled: "How do we as artists working in different genres use (or abuse) classic works?"