Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra / Season 2023-24

Holy Week. L.v. BEETHOVEN

Conductor José María Moreno
Symphony No.9 in D minor, Op.125, Ludwig van Beethoven
Betty Garcés soprano
Asude Karayavuz mezzo-soprano
Aquiles Machado tenor
Juan Carlos Heredia baritone
Coro Nacional de España
Choir conductor Miguel Ángel García Cañamero

1.10 h (w/out intermission)
orquestafilarmonicademalaga.com
photo ©Paloma Aguilar ©Opaezo Films & Photography
Program notes Jose Antonio Canton

Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony in D minor, Op.125 determined a profound change in the history of the symphonic genre. It entailed the most daring revolution of the classic form: a whirlwind of ideas and a flourishment of developments in the most unpredictable varieties of rhythms which acquire, as they flow, huge formative power, sustained by polyphonic fabrics in which the circulation of the harmonic current and the moving and deeply penetrating fantasies of canto vibrate fervently, taken to the limit of physical possibilities. Even though the symphony maintains the four traditional tempos (allegro, adagio, scherzo and finale), it marks a deep chasm and an expressive tension that distinguishes it from previous works conceived within the same formal patterns.
Dedicated to King Frederick William III of Prussia, it was premiered on May 7th, 1824, at Vienna’s Kärntnertortheater with the theatre’s chorus and orchestra and Michael Umlauf as conductor, assisted by Ignaz Schuppanzigh and Beethoven himself, who despite being deaf, passed the pages standing up. The contradictory opinions regarding the symphony vanished after Wagner expressed his opinion after hearing it for the first time: "Beethoven’s last symphony redeems music due to its innermost virtues, taking it towards the universal art of the future. No progress is possible after the Ninth, as it can only be directly followed by the consummate work of art of the future, that is, the universal drama whose artistic key Beethoven has given us.”

Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra Season 2023-24