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Beethoven\'s Choral Symphony
Eclectic Voices / Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra
Presented by: Eclectic Voices| 0 | LONDON: St Pancras New Church |
|---|---|
| P | Saturday 16th June, 2018 |
| N | 7:30pm |
Event information
Mendelssohn Psalm 42, \"Wie der Hirsch Schreit\"
Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, \"Choral\"
Eclectic Voices
Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra
Scott Stroman, conductor
The wonderful acoustic of St. Pancras Church is the venue for the 3rd collaboration between Eclectic Voices and the Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra, after exciting performances of Beethoven\'s Missa Solemnis in 2016 and works by Poulenc, Ravel and Stravinsky in 2017.
In 1837, when Felix Mendelssohn composed his setting of psalm 42, As Pants the Hart, the world was still reeling from the impact of Beethoven\'s monumental Choral Symphony of 1824, with its Ode to Joy finale. In expanding the symphonic palette to include voices, Beethoven had opened a new world to followers such as Mendelssohn with his Lobegsang and Psalm 42, and Mahler, with his symphonies and song-cycles.
Beethoven\'s influence towered over every composer of the time, and, as Gewandhaus Kapellmeister, Mendelssohn additionally became one of Beethoven\'s greatest interpreters, conducting his symphonies year after year. Though critics generally raved about Mendelssohn as a conductor, his great friend Robert Schumann was always critical of his choice of tempos in Beethoven, criticising him for being too fast.
Perhaps Mendelssohn connected more deeply with the music than his followers; it took over 100 years, and the birth of the ‘authentic’ performance movement, for others to perform Beethoven\'s works at the composer\'s prescribed speeds. But the symphony seems to prosper at almost any tempo; there is something deeper at the heart of these two works, and they share a unique ability to express the aspirational nature of man and the hopes of mankind.
