Big guns line up for Beethoven’s 250th birthday

2020 is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Beethoven, the world’s favourite composer as well as its most consistently innovative. From dreamy sonatas to revolutionary symphonies, the range of his work is staggering; its deep resonance exploited in everything from Oscar-bait (The King’s Speech, Saving Private Ryan) to ultraviolence (A Clockwork Orange, countless ad campaigns).

As you’d expect, the quarter millennium of “lovely, lovely Ludwig Van” is being embraced by musicians the world over, and our city is no exception. Celebrations at St George’s Bristol began early this year with solo recitals from Angela Hewitt and James Lisney, but now the big symphonic guns are lined up ready to fire.

First up are the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, who arrive on 15 March for a show of musical muscle. The main event will be a performance of the mighty Third – otherwise known as Eroica – as well as Richard Strauss’s post-war lament for 23 solo strings, Metamorphosen. The concert will open with a performance of Beethoven’s early aria Ah! Perfido featuring acclaimed soprano Rhian Lois.

Soprano Rhian Lois

The Bristol Metropolitan Orchestra return on 22 March, pairing the high romanticism of Liszt’s Concerto No. 2 with Beethoven’s tempestuous 5th Symphony, one of the most famous pieces in the history of music. The featured soloist will be Rachel Starritt, a highly talented student at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama who has been blind from birth.

As anyone who has seen or heard Aurora Orchestra will tell you, their performances are a bit different, and frankly a bit special. Orchestra in Residence at St George’s, the Aurora perform large scale pieces from memory and on 24 March they set their sights on the delightful Sixth Symphony, otherwise known as Pastoral. The programme also includes Mozart’s A major Piano Concerto, and Harrison Birtwistle’s Cortege for 14 Musicians.

Britain may have left the European Union, but something resembling its official anthem will be heard when Bristol Classical Players perform on 9 May. Beethoven’s epic and glorious Ninth Symphony will feature in a transcendence-themed programme that also includes Wagner’s Meistersinger Prelude and Vaughan Williams’s Toward the Unknown Region.

The last concert in this celebratory season will be from much admired Hungarian-American ensemble Takacs Quartet, who will bring things back down to intimate scale with the String Quartet Op 13. Lighter in tone than Beethoven’s other Late Quartets, it’s the last piece he ever completed, and one that tackles the inevitable with a newfound sense of freedom. It’s framed here by his great mentor Haydn’s String Quartet No 2, and the 18-year old Mendelssohn’s String Quartet Op 13, heavily influenced by Beethoven and composed shortly after the Maestro’s death. Must it be? It must be!

For tickets and information visit www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk/

Top image: Beethoven painted in 1820 by Joseph Karl Stieler. © Beethoven-Haus Bonn